From the November 2019 Desktop News | Dr. Tim Mewes, a UA physicist, was recently named a 2020 distinguished lecturer by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Magnetics Society, an international group of researchers and academics who study anything and everything involving magnetism.

As the only researcher from the United States to receive this honor, Mewes will travel to universities, laboratories, and other organizations to give lectures on his research. Within these lectures, his goal is to inform other magnetics researchers about his groundbreaking work, as well as promoting the study of magnetism to students and researchers who may not be as familiar with the subject.

“I’ll be talking to people that are already in the field, but also to a broader audience to get people interested, and get them to understand what current research in magnetism is about,” Mewes said.

Mewes plans to focus his lectures on his research on magnetization dynamics, highlighting the latest innovative research being done at UA. His goal is to make the material he discusses straightforward enough for anyone to understand it — both those who have devoted their lives to the study of magnetism and those just hearing about it for the first time.

For Mewes, receiving the title of distinguished lecturer means that his work is being recognized as important by some of the brightest minds in his field. He hopes that, while travelling and sharing his research, he can make connections with professionals both in and out of his field so that they can grow the study of magnetism in ways that have not yet been thought of.

“When you talk to people who are not heavily involved in your field, you oftentimes get new ideas,” Mewes said. “Sometimes, people will come up to you and say, ‘Oh, that looks like something we do in this very different field.’ This way you get to think about your own research differently. Oftentimes, that leads to collaborations that can develop completely new ideas.”

Mewes will begin his world tour in the spring of 2020 and plans to give more than fifty lectures throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia.