Interview with Alumnus Phil Kesten (Ph.D. '84)

The Department Editor recently interviewed Phil Kesten, associate professor and chair of the Santa Clara University Physics Department, for the December 2003 News of Michigan Physics newsletter. Due to space constraints in the newsletter, only portions of the interview were published. You may find the entire interview below.

How did your love of physics evolve? "I suppose like most (all?) physicists, from an early age I had both a love of learning as well as a burning curiosity about everything, but especially about the how and why of things. In the summer between my junior and senior years in high school I took an introductory physics course at nearby Syracuse University – just for fun, believe it or not – and the stuff I learned was really exciting. That was my first inkling that physics was for me."

What were the deciding factors that led you to enter the Physics Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan?
"I applied to about six schools for graduate work. Since I wasn’t sure in which field within physics I wanted to concentrate, I looked at departments with strong research groups in a wide variety of subfields. Of course, I also wanted to go to a place with a strong reputation, so that’s why Michigan was one of the schools to which I applied. When I set about to select from the schools that had offered me admission, however, Michigan stood apart from the others. As my senior year at MIT drew to a close, I was, candidly, not sure I was ready to go directly to graduate school. Although I never saw myself doing the 9-to-5 thing, I explored options for (gainful!) employment. A company called Schumberger had to offer me a position as an oil well logging engineer. Out in the flats of the southern top of Texas, no less. It was just crazy enough that I called all of my possible schools to see if I could delay enrollment. Michigan was the only one that seemed to genuinely support my interest in doing a little soul searching, and that sealed the deal. (I did go down to Texas to work in the oil fields, and found myself spending every free minute studying physics. I left in January, pretended to be a grad student at MIT for nine months, and was in Arbor the next September.)

I suppose I should note that another thing attracted me to Michigan, although it is not associated with the Physics Department. At the time I was weighing my options, I discovered that Michigan had a Fledgling Crew program. I had rowed and later apprenticed myself to the coaches at MIT, and Michigan offered me a chance to get into a launch for real. I ended up serving as the first head coach of the Michigan Crew. The sport of rowing remains a passion in my life."

Who was your U-M High Energy Physics advisor at U-M Physics?
"My “boss” at Michigan was Don Meyer. I have only the fondest memories of Don, who I considered then and still consider the ideal mentor. He gave me room to explore and to learn on my own, but was already ready to guide me – gently – when I needed some direction. I recall two experiences in particular.

As I began to think about the analysis I would do for my thesis – having worked on the experiment for a few years doing hardware and related work – I told Don I wanted to carry out a search for a rather elusive, somewhat odd particle, the d ++. I thought it was interesting physics and also physics that exploited the subsystem that Don had designed and that Michigan had contributed to the High Resolution Spectrometer (HRS) experiment. While he didn’t disagree on either point, he thought that the difficulties would be severe enough to prevent me from completing such an analysis successfully. But here’s the thing: Don never told me not to try it, patiently watching – and helping – as I got deeper and deeper into the hole he knew was waiting. I eventually had to give it up, but it was a great learning experience, both in terms of the physics and in how to be a physicist.

After I had worked for a while on the analysis that would become the basis for my thesis, Don suggested I come back to Ann Arbor to start to write. I had, of course, been based at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center; except for summers. Don was in Ann Arbor. Don knew that as one of the longer-standing grad students, I always had someone or another asking me to do some thing or another at the experiment. And like most grad students, I wasn’t about to object – I spent seven days a week, probably 10 or more hours a day, at the experiment because I liked it. But Don knew that I’d never finish in that kind of mode, so he encouraged me to come back to Ann Arbor, where he would be close at hand and where I wouldn’t have as many distractions. It was one of the best decisions I made as a grad student, and it was primarily because Don was “watching over” me.

You ask if there were others who influenced me or who left a lasting impression. One faculty member in particular comes to mind: Martinus Veltman. At some point while I was still taking classes, Professor Veltman had come as a visiting professor. I decided that although I didn’t have nearly the background for the class he was to offer, I couldn’t pass up the chance to learn from this great physicist… and after all, it was a high-level course, so there wouldn’t be any homework or tests. Well, no, it turned out that since all students in Europe take an oral exam in Europe, so would we. I was mortified about the prospect of standing alone at the board in front of one of the world’s greatest physicists, but I could not persuade Professor Veltman to let me off the hook. In retrospect, that test turned out to be a defining moment for me. I did well, yes, (and believe me, that was a great relief!), but I learned a lot about teaching and learning from that experience that I carry with me to this day. I should also note that Tini (Professor Veltman) later agreed to serve on my dissertation committee, and that is something of which I am still proud."

Can you tell me how your career progressed after graduating from U-M Physics?
"Sure. First, Michigan kindly let me stay on as a post-doc for about half a year, and with Don’s help, during that time, I connected with two or three exciting post-doc opportunities. I eventually went off to Brandeis University where I became a member of the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) group. After five years at Brandeis, I took a visiting position at Santa Clara University, which I began in the fall of 1990. What was I thinking? I moved my wife and young son from Massachusetts to California for a position with a nine-month contract! Although I had to reapply, I was offered a tenure-track job the following spring and I received tenure in 1995. Santa Clara is the perfect place for me."

How many years have you been chair of your department? What do you like most about being chair?
"I’ve been chair since 1996. Mine is a small department – six faculty members, a lab instructor, and an administrator – which means that the chair has a real opportunity to make good things happen. Being chair has allowed me to make strong contributions to the learning environment of our students and to the working environment of the faculty."

How did you accomplish revamping the old telescope on the Santa Clara campus?
"Who would know, but Santa Clara has one of the finest on-campus observatories in the country! Alvan Clark, the premier telescope builder of the 19th century, built the telescope in our main dome in 1882. At that time, it was the fourth largest telescope in the world, and it remains a scientific-grade instrument. Long before I came to Santa Clara, however, the University had decided that the facility couldn’t be of much use given the light and other pollution in the Bay Area, and therefore shut it down. But how could such an amazing telescope – one that Lewis Swift had used to discover more than 10 comets – be allowed to lie fallow? So a group of dedicated students, mostly from the Department of Physics, and I brought the telescope and the observatory back to life. We designed and built electronics to control the telescope and obtained grant money to both construct new optics and to purchase a large, cooled Charged Couple Device (CCD) array for the back end."

What prompted you to found Docutek Information Systems?
"Since I was in high school I’ve been interested in computers, in particular, ways to use computers to enhance the academic experience. Docutek grew out of this interest in applying computer solutions to academic problems. In the early 1990’s, I wrote a system that allowed my students to work together online – an electronic study group – and that eventually evolved into a system through which faculty could make reading material available to students electronically. That was “ERes,” an Electronic Reserves system, that is, the electronic version of putting notes and papers on reserve in the library. In 1995, I recruited a student to help me get ERes to run on the Web, which was just starting to be the big, new thing. ERes, now called Docutek ERes, became our company’s first product. I can’t lie and say that we didn’t both dream that one day we’d make some money, but certainly my main interest was getting what I thought was some really cool software into as many hands as possible. And that’s why I started Docutek. I think it’s much the same as the reason people write textbooks. No doubt very few people write a book because they want to make money – they do it because they think they can explain the material better than everyone else and for that reason can help future students understand it better. Me, I looked at Docutek as a way to contribute to academia.

I must say that I still feel the same way, and have been gratified over the years that little old Docutek has not only grown, and is not only financially successful, but it has continued to follow my original philosophy of creating really good academic-related software and getting it out into as many hands as possible. We even now have a grant program through which we offer full support to hundreds of K-12 schools a year."

I am intrigued to understand the "4 year" campus communities idea. Could you please explain how you became involved, what prompted this idea, and how it will work?
"Way back when, a Dan Amidei [now U-M professor of physics] with thick, dark hair and a Phil Kesten, with far fewer jowls lived across the hall from each other in a dorm at MIT. We shared a floor not only with other freshmen, but with sophomores, juniors, and seniors as well, all of whom had lived on that same floor for their entire MIT careers. I not only had a place to live, but from day one I was surrounded by a community. We never had the problems that I’ve seen all too often in “freshmen dorms,” and we were a tight group. I’m still friendly with a number of those people, as I know Dan is.

Santa Clara is a school that prides itself on having a strong sense of community, yet when I first came I didn’t see that evident among the students. Based on my experiences at MIT, I knew that community starts where people live, so some years ago I started to campaign for a four-year community on our campus. My opportunity came when Santa Clara decided to create, “Residential Learning Communities (RLCs).” The overall program was intended only for freshmen, but I received a special dispensation to have a multi-year hall. In a physical building that students had traditionally despised, 25% of my students requested to return after our first year, 50% after the second, and last year – our third – 150 of the 200 students asked to return to the community. Because of our success, all of the RLCs are now two-year communities, and Santa Clara is planning more residential space so that eventually all can be four-year communities.

Why has my community, originally called ATOM and now the da Vinci Community, been so successful? I know for sure that it starts with the mix of students – having upper class students living side by side with freshmen and sophomores makes a real difference. But I, together with our da Vinci leadership team, support and encourage a wide range of social and academic activities in the community that help bring students together.

I should say that although my own emphasis is on the “C” in RLC – community – Santa Clara’s emphasis is on the “L.” The main goal of the program is to better integrate the students’ learning and living environments, to fulfill our mission of “integrated education.” My community is ostensibly the “Community of the Sciences,” and although we have students from all majors and disciplines, we do all sorts of things that mix in some science with the social (only at the students’ request, however.) As an example, this fall, a group of students went off to play “broomball,” a hockey-like game. As part of their evening of fun, they asked me to give a lecture on the Physics of Broomball, so I got to talk about ice and friction and conservation of angular momentum to a room of 50 students… all of whom actually wanted to be there!"

I hear you are still publishing scientific papers. What topics currently interest you?
"Well, I can’t say I’m as involved with real science as I would like to be. My last paper was a photometric study of the inner moons of Uranus – astronomy and astrophysics are topics currently of interest to me. Astronomy is also accessible to someone like me, unlike particle physics that demands one’s full attention."