Credit: Penn State. Creative Commons
By Katie Yan
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In 2026, Penn State celebrates the centennial anniversary of awarding its first doctoral degree — in physics — to Marsh White. This degree was awarded from the then-School of Chemistry and Physics at the Pennsylvania State College, known today as the Department of Physics in the Penn State Eberly College of Science.
White, who also earned his master’s degree from Penn State in 1920, set out to disprove Einstein’s theory of relativity in his doctoral thesis. Despite not succeeding, White contributed to a growing body of science and nonetheless, became the first person to do so from Penn State — emphasizing the importance of scientific curiosity and discovery.
Stella White, Marsh White’s wife, also contributed to Penn State’s early graduate education, earning her master’s degree in history in 1920.
Marsh White and others stand for a portrait at Penn State’s 1926 commencement. Credit: Penn State. Creative Commons
After graduation, White joined the physics faculty at Penn State, serving as a professor until 1960. During his time as a professor, White set his sights on studying and improving undergraduate science education. He was involved in numerous leadership roles, including the founding of the third national chapter of the Sigma Pi Sigma Physics Honor Society in 1926 and the Society of Physics Students in 1968. White also wrote many physics textbooks and earned a War Department Citation in 1946 and the Presidential Certificate of Merit in 1948. He lived to be 102 years old.
Today, the legacy of Marsh White lives on at Penn State.
In 2026, the University celebrated awarding one million degrees, including the three earned by the Whites so long ago.
Within the Eberly College of Science, White is a standout among its early physics history, which, itself, is more than 150 years old, with the first mention of physics classes being offered in 1871. In 1879, I. Thornton Osmond was appointed head of the Department of Physics. In 2025, the department celebrated the 70th anniversary of Erwin Müller becoming the first person to see an atom.
Marsh White, recipient of Penn State’s first doctorate. Credit: Penn State. Creative Commons
Recently, the Eberly College of Science spoke with several physics alumni from different decades about their experiences at Penn State and what it means to be celebrating 100 years of the doctoral degree, as well as Marsh White’s legacy impact on undergraduate education in the department.
These alums were Vernon Barger, emeritus professor of physics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who earned his doctoral degree in physics in 1963; Max Lagally, the Erwin W. Mueller Professor and Bascom Professor of Surface Science at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics in 1963 and 1965, respectively; Robert Dimeo, director of the High Flux Isotope Reactor Upgrades Project at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who earned bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in physics in 1991 and 1999, respectively; Sylvia Biscovenau, an assistant professor of physics at Princeton University who earned her bachelor’s degree in physics in 2017; and Marquis McMillan, a physics graduate student at the University of Chicago who graduated with his bachelor’s degree in 2021.
Marquis McMillan: Being in the Society of Physics Students club lounge, definitely. Every day I’d go in there, do my homework, and chat with people about how to approach problem sets. We’d also brainstorm different types of problems just to be creative and practice problem-solving, making up problems for ourselves and solving them on the boards from time-to-time.
One of my great memories is going down to the HUB and grabbing infinite amounts of coffee from the Starbucks and coming back to the lounge, as physicists do.
Sylvia Biscovenau: I have a lot of fond, physics-related memories. I had a group of friends in my cohort in the physics major, and we’d do homework together most weeks. One of my friends was doing research in a group with a lab on the third floor of Whitmore Lab, and we’d come in through the tunnels late at night, camp out in the conference room, order pizza around 11 p.m., and work until the wee hours of the morning.
One memory in particular: We were getting ready to camp out and work on homework for Physics 419, the undergraduate general relativity class. We started working and thought, “this is going quickly, we’re making great progress,” and then an hour later we were like, “I guess we’re done.” So we walked over to the HUB, where they were doing a screening of “Moana,” and ended up watching that instead of working on physics homework until 2 a.m. That was a pleasant surprise. I’m not sure it’s my single favorite memory, but it’s one of the fun ones.
Max Lagally: I have a telegram that says, “At its meeting on Monday, May 6th, 1963, the Administrative Committee on Student Affairs voted to charter the Penn State student section of the American Institute of Physics. With this charter, the American Institute of Physics may use the university’s name and facilities, subject at all times to the rules and regulations governing student organizations.” So, I must have had something to do with reinstituting that chapter. It might have been inactive for a few years before I started at Penn State.
Robert Dimeo: The Society of Physics Students was a great group of students. We’d sometimes work on homework together, and we did all the planning for the annual laser rock show. I’ve got great memories of working with the guy who ran the lab equipment, Mullfinger, who helped us with setup and teardown for the laser show. The show was really an excuse for us to play with lasers and blast really loud music in Osmond Building.
Sylvia Biscoveanu: Definitely, Rick Robinett. I would not be a physicist without him.
When I arrived at Penn State, I didn’t really know what I wanted to study. I’d been seriously pursuing music, then decided I wasn’t going to study it in college, so I arrived a little untethered. I knew I’d liked physics in high school, but I was open to a lot of things. I went to Rick because he was the undergraduate academic adviser for physics, and he basically laid it all out: take these classes, here are the faculty to reach out to about doing research, and apply for this scholarship. He’s really the reason I became a physicist.
I also have to mention Chad Hanna, my professor for Introduction to Modern Physics. We were talking about the Michelson–Morley experiment, which measured the speed of light and ruled out the existence of the ether, and he mentioned he was part of a collaboration working on a much larger, more advanced version of a similar experiment looking to detect gravitational waves. That sounded cool, so I applied for a summer research program with that experiment, called LIGO. That’s what I’ve spent my career studying ever since, so I’m grateful to Chad for that introduction, too.
Marquis McMillan: Eric Hudson, absolutely. He’s a fantastic educator. The first time I had him as a professor, his teaching style was something completely new for me. I honestly thought I was going to fail the class. But that open classroom experience was something I’d never encountered before, and it’s honestly what taught me how to be an independent researcher, which carried into my work at the University of Chicago. So that shaped my educational experience at Penn State.
In terms of my research experience, it was Nitin Samarth, who was department head at the time. He onboarded me during the lead-up to COVID and gave me the freedom to pursue my own project, which was formative for me.
Robert Dimeo: One aspect is reputation. Penn State is known for strength in specific areas of physics. When I was an undergrad, it was high-energy physics and condensed matter physics. By the time I was a graduate student, gravitation and cosmology were starting to build up; the gravitation group as it exists today wasn’t there yet when I started as an undergrad. What that meant, for something like condensed matter physics, is that after I got my Ph.D., I’d go to meetings like the American Physics Society March Meeting and attend talks by Penn State students, postdocs and faculty, and I knew going in that they’d be technically excellent and reflect great research. So, reputation is one piece of it.
The other is networking. I run into Penn State physics graduates occasionally who are now at universities, federal agencies, and national labs. When our paths cross, that inevitably leads to reminiscing and catching up on careers, even catching up on others from our cohort. Those connections to other organizations that you didn’t know you had can be really useful.
Maquis McMillan: For me, being a Penn Stater with a physics degree is really all about the network. I know there was an initiative about 30 years ago to advance and build the Penn State physics program into something even stronger, and it’s clearly succeeded, based on the alumni who have graduated from the program that I’ve met.
Max Lagally: There are really a lot of paths to success, and you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room to get there. Don’t be too sure you already know how your career is going to go. Three things mattered most for me. First, I learned from my very first graduate student that I wasn’t as smart as I thought, and that I didn’t have to act like it. I realized it was actually to my advantage to be the “dumbest guy in the room.” It lets everyone else relax and ask the dumb questions that everyone secretly has. That relaxation is what lets people get creative. Second, I hired people who were smarter than I was and let them work. Third, related to not being too smart, I was able to communicate with funding agencies at the level they understood. I could distill what we were trying to do into terms they could follow, and that made a real difference.
Robert Dimeo: I didn’t know where I’d end up after college. I’ve been very blessed in my career and had lots of different opportunities, and because you don’t know where you’ll end up, whether you’re early in your career or still a student, learn the stories behind your professors’ careers. As an undergraduate, try as many different things as you can tolerate. Different courses, research experiences, internships and more. I was an REU (Research Experiences for Undergraduates) student for a summer, and that was really valuable. The more information you can gather, whether from other people’s stories or from internships and undergraduate research experiences, the more it helps you figure out what you like and what you don’t.
Finally, figure out how to talk conversationally about science. When you get into the workforce, at a university, a federal lab, or in industry, there’s always some stakeholder who needs to understand why what you’re doing matters and what its impact is. The sooner you learn how to do that, the better. It’s been one of the most valuable things I’ve done throughout my career at national research facilities.
Vernon Barger: My answer would be that Penn State’s legacy is providing opportunities to people who might not otherwise have ended up with a college degree at all, being genuinely accommodating to people regardless of money or prestige. I am proud to be a graduate of a land-grant institution. Both of my degrees were from Penn State, I like the idea of being a graduate of a land-grant university.
I think physics has an interesting legacy, because a lot of “firsts” happened in physics at Penn State, but the department has also transformed over time. The department has made major steps as it has risen to a higher level.
Sylvia Biscoveanu: It’s amazing to think about how much physics research and physics itself have changed in the last hundred years. We’ve had the revolution of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, real experimental probes of Einstein’s general relativity, and a shift from the lone-genius model of science to a more collaborative, large-scale, multinational approach. It’s exciting to be on the tail end of that.
Physics education has changed a lot, too. One thing I got to be involved in 10 years ago at Penn State was being a learning assistant. Ideas like the flipped classroom and active learning were just getting started, and now they’re mainstream and much more widely adopted. It’s been exciting to see both the growth of physics research across different areas and this more collaborative approach to physics education, and how it’s been implemented at Penn State, even in just the last 10 years. I’m excited for the next hundred years, too.
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