Tom Spencer Biography

I teach at the Chesapeake Center for Science and Technology in Chesapeake, Virginia. I teach Introduction to Engineering, Research and Development, and Physics for Technology to students from tenth through twelth grades. I am twenty-seven years old. I live in Virginia Beach, Virginia with my wife Gina and our two children Rachael who is three and Nicholas who is eleven months old. I Am interested in all areas of science and technology. I have particular interests in electronics, which I taught for five years, and physics which I currently teach.

I became involved with particle detectors for the first time through my summer work at the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF). There I built the Hall A Vertical Drift Chamber Gas Mixing System. At that time a co-worker was testing photomultiplier tubes in a dark box located a few feet from me. I was intrigued by the electronics used to operate and test the PMT's, and their use as particle detectors. Chernkov light?...How COOL!

I competed for a position in the NSF's Teachers experiencing Antarctica (TEA) program. I was then assigned to work with the Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA). I traveled to the University of Wisconsin this summer to work with Dr. Robert Morse and others associated with AMANDA. I worked on analysis of data that was collected on the last round of drilling at the Pole. I am continuing my work on the analysis of that data here in Virginia. I will be involved with data aquisition and deployment of the strings of photomultiplier tubes in the holes that are drilled between January 7 and February 5 in 1996.

I have developed the Antarctic Telecommunications Program to involve as many students as possible in this once in a lifetime experience. Teachers and students will have the opportunity to correspond with South Pole scientists, and I will conduct experiments for them and we will exchange data over the Internet.