As a new academic year begins, Spoon River College welcomes Alison Roxburgh as their new Physics professor.
Roxburgh was born in Florida, but moved to the UK with her father when she just four years old. She moved back to Florida when she was 18 and earned a B.S. in Physics concentrating in Astrophysics from the University of North Florida (UNF), and ran the Astronomy Club while there.
Following a year of teaching high school physics in Jacksonville, FL, Roxburgh moved to Colorado and earned a M.S. in Physics and then a Ph.D in Applied Physics from the University of Colorado Springs. Her graduate research was in the field of theoretical magnonics, the manipulation of spin wave properties in magnetic materials.
While in graduate school, Roxburgh taught numerous physics labs and also ran the Physics Journal Club. She has volunteered for an astronomy outreach group called #popsocope since 2016, and plans to continue having astronomy pop-ups in the Spoon River College communities.
Roxburgh met her partner, who grew up in Farmington, while in graduate school in Colorado in the same physics program, and they moved back to be near his family. They are parents to cats Cleo and Hubble. When not teaching, she loves baking, reading, star-gazing, and bird-watching. She is also “a huge nerd” for musicals, Doctor Who, and Lord of the Rings.
