About Professor Coletta
Dr. Vincent Coletta earned a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Notre Dame, and has been a Professor of Physics at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles for over 40 years. Professor Coletta chaired the LMU Physics Department for 11 years. In that capacity, he built the department’s Interactive Physics Classroom, with a unique design that facilitates interactive learning. Dr. Coletta’s graduate research involved calculating long-range correlations between spins in many-body magnetic systems – a problem in statistical mechanics. His graduate research advisor was Professor Gerald Jones, an academic descendant of Uhlenbeck, Sommerfeld, and Boltzmann.
Dr. Coletta’s textbook, Physics Fundamentals, was first published in 1995, and has been used throughout the world. Over the past 20 years Dr. Coletta has been active in Physics Education Research – the scientific investigation of the learning and teaching of physics. He has analyzed test results from thousands of students in order to better understand the factors that influence their success in physics. This has led to publications in the American Journal of Physics, Physical Review, and The Physics Teacher. His Thinking in Physics project is designed to enhance the reasoning skills of students at risk in introductory physics. This project has received National Science Foundation funding.
Dr. Coletta’s Textbook is bundled with online homework in the online learning platform Physics LE.