FAMU appoints Weatherford interim associate vice-president for research

FAMU has appointed Charles A. Weatherford, Ph.D., as the interim associate vice president for research. Weatherford formerly served as chair of the Department of Physics in the College of Science and Technology. His new role began October 11, 2013.

Weatherford has been a faculty member in the FAMU Physics Department since 1978. He has served as chairman of the department for 18 of the last 23 years. Weatherford spent his summers working at IBM Almaden, NASA Ames, the Department of Energy Laboratories at Argonne and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. During this time, he helped start both a master’s (1998) and a doctoral (2001) degree program in physics.

Weatherford received the FAMU Professorial Excellence Program Award (1999) and the Distinguished Researcher of the Year Award (2011). He became a Fellow of the National Society of Black Physicists in 2007, and has an ongoing interest in increasing the number of underrepresented minorities in physics and in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) disciplines. Additionally, Weatherford co-founded the Future Physicists of Florida (a middle school honor society) with Florida State University Physics Professor Paul Cottle, Ph.D.

Weatherford has 213 publications in atomic, molecular, optical, plasma, condensed matter, and computational physics. He has been the dissertation director for two FAMU physics doctorates; Eddie Red, Ph.D. and Daniel Gebremedhin, Ph.D.; and has mentored many FAMU physics undergraduates, three of whom have obtained physics doctorates from other universities. Weatherford has been the principal investigator on over $15 million of external funding while at FAMU and has been co-principal investigator on another $20 million in external funding. A theme of the research has been the use of high performance computers and modern partial differential equation techniques such as finite, spectral and pseudo-spectral elements. His current work is in electron correlation and quantum control for the manipulation of molecular systems for military and energy applications, and he serves as the director of the FAMU-State of Florida Center for Plasma Science and Technology.

Weatherford received his doctoral degree from Louisiana State University in 1974, in the field of theoretical atomic and molecular physics with a minor in solid-state physics. He completed post-doctoral fellowships at FAMU (1974-1978) and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (1985-86).

K. Ken Redda, Ph.D., professor and interim vice president for research noted of this appointment:  “I am looking forward to welcoming an outstanding researcher and seasoned administrator to our Division of Research family.  His superb and sustained service at FAMU is impressive.”