Dr. David F. Cattell, Department Chair
Dr. Cattell received his Bachelor of
Science degree in physics from Drexel University in 1972. In 1974
he received his Master of Arts in physics from Temple University.
He continued his graduate work in
physics at Temple and in 1981 he received his Doctor of Philosophy
degree. While at Temple University
he and his thesis advisor, M. A. Melvin, wrote a paper entitled
Neutrino, Maxwell, and Scalar Fields
in the Cylindrical Magnetic or Plasm Universe which was published
in the Journal of Mathematical
Physics. (J. Math. Phys. 20(9), September 1979). Dr. Cattell's
doctoral thesis was on neutrino, Maxwell and scalar fields in
cylindrical and spherical relativistic spaces. At Community College
of Philadelphia he has been involved in efforts to integrate computer-aided
methods into Physics Department courses. From April 18, 1998 to
June 15, 1998 he participated in a faculty development project
to produce faculty skills in the use of state-of-the-art hardware
and software used by Drexel University to teach engineering. The
work was done at the Lebow Engineering Labs of Drexel University.
Overseeing this project was Dr. Robin Carr of Drexel University.
In 1999 Dr. Cattell proposed a revision of the Engineering-Science
curriculum based on the project work at Drexel. He helped write
an NSF grant proposal that would help implement this revision.
As part of the curriculum revsion, Dr. Cattell wrote two new courses:
ENGR
102 (Engineering Design and Laboratory I) and ENGR 202 (Engineering
Design and Laboratory II). In these
courses students use industry-standard workstations to learn how
computers are used for engineering design, problem solving and
data acquisition. Two other Physics faculty members, Mr. Thomas
Schaffer and Mr. Raymond Ruland, also made valuable contributions
to these courses.
In 2004 Dr. Cattell proposed a second revision of the Engineering-Science curriculum and wrote another new course, ENGR 205 (Materials Engineering), to help establish an articulation agreement with Drexel University for students majoring in Engineering-Science.
Dr. Cattell is a member of the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers. He has been Department Chair since 1996.