Physics, University of Maryland
| Prof. Michael J. Ruiz, Ph.D., Theoretical Physics, University of Maryland |
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Prof. Ruiz came to UNCA after receiving his doctorate from the University of Maryland. He was department chair at UNCA for 20 years, after which time he requested to be replaced so that he could spend more time with you.
Ruiz Teaching Awards (in blue below)
The 1995 UNCA Teacher Award
The 1997 Natural Sciences Award
The 2004 Board of Governors Award
2009-2010 Ruth and Leon Feldman
Professor for Scholarship and Service
2016-2017 Scholarly and Creative Achievement Award
He was the first faculty member to receive all three major UNCA teaching awards.
His innovative use of educational multimedia materials delivered over the Internet has received international recognition: Ruiz on CNN.
PHYS 101 Light and Visual Phenomena was first developed at UNCA in 1980 as a two-hour course. In the 1980s it became a three-hour course. Classes moved to the current location in the multimedia auditorium pictured below in the Spring of 1989, after Robinson Hall was completed the previous Fall. The room was originally designed with much input from Prof. Ruiz (Doc). Lab was added in 2006.
| Ruiz and Son Performing for a UNCA Humanities Class, February 1998 |
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The instructor's son, Evan M. Ruiz, played a major role in the design of the computer interface for this site. The interface includes the overall course-delivery system, interactive computer applets, and streaming digital video. He accomplished this fundamental work during his last year in high school (1998-1999) and first two years in college. During the 2005-2006 Academic Year, Evan developed applets for the online labs.
Evan graduated in May 2003 from Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, as a computer science major. Evan is in the background in the picture from the CNN piece at the top of this page and he is shown at the right in a photo taken before a UNCA humanities class.
In the Fall 2014, Doc's daughter Frances Ruiz upgraded a core of Java apps to html5.