Christopher M. Sorensen
Distinguished Professor of Physics
Kansas State University
Passion for Teaching Statement  
Student Introduction
Acceptance Speech
Video of Acceptance Speech

Christopher M. Sorensen has taught for 30 years at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan., where he is University Distinguished Professor of Physics. He believes that learning should be placed in students’ hands, literally. In one of 130 lab demonstrations he created for a New Studio engineering physics course, students jump off tables holding cups of water to experience a moment of zero gravity.

Sorensen designed the course to engage students and make physics come alive and developed a similar approach for teaching applied optics. In teaching Physics 101, Sorensen replaces standard textbook content with readings from the original work of great scientific minds such as Galileo, Newton and Einstein.

He has received numerous honors for his teaching and has had more than 210 articles published on topics including aerosols, light scattering and nanomaterials. He also created and teaches a summer experimental science and engineering workshop for teenage girls and supervises high school student research. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska and master's and doctoral degrees in physics from the University of Colorado.