2014/2015 Award Recipients

Joe Salamon (Physics)

Joe Salamon has been a dedicated teaching assistant and a valued and active member of the Department of Physics graduate council. His care for student learning goes beyond the boundaries of his assignments. In teaching Relativity and Quantum Physics, Mr. Salamon boldly adopted a flipped classroom approach and outshined the Department of Physics faculty by a wide margin: The statistics indicate that students worked much harder, learned much more, and were overwhelmingly appreciative of this remarkable instructor. As one student enthused, “Joe is an amazing TA! He does an excellent job of explaining difficult concepts and providing extra examples when things still don’t make sense. His passion for the subject comes through in his teaching, and it makes me excited to learn the material. The course would not have been the same without Joe.” Mr. Salamon has made an outstanding contribution to teaching excellence at UC San Diego.