Darrell Schroeter '95
Professor of Physics
Physics Department
Division of Mathematical and Natural Sciences
As a condensed matter theorist, my teaching in the physics department at Reed College has focused on Physics 201 (our students' introduction to mathematical methods), solid-state physics, and the advanced quantum mechanics course. My education began at Reed College in 1991 and I received my PhD in physics from Stanford University in 2002. From 2007-2009, working with my thesis student Eliot Kapit (Reed '05), I published a pair of papers in Physical Review Letters and Physical Review B which identified a microscopic model for a state of matter known as the chiral spin liquid. This is the work of which I am the most proud, in part because it is a significant scientific accomplishment, but also because the solution to the problem arose from the senior thesis experience at Reed. Recently, I have been working with Reed students both during the summer and during the year on a type of magnetic ordering known as orbital antiferromagnetism that may play a role in the phenomenon of high-Tc superconductivity.