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When Visiting Assistant Professor of Physics Jordan Dull ’16 was a senior at St. Olaf College, he received a Rossing Scholarship, an award that recognizes excellence in physics. After graduating, Dull went on to pursue a Ph.D. at Princeton University, where he conducted research on organic solar cells.

“The Rossing award allowed me to see myself as a physicist,” he says. “To be recognized by others in the field for my achievements and desire to pursue physics or engineering gave me confidence to follow through on that dream.”

Now Dull teaches physics at St. Olaf and recognizes the value of an award like the Rossing Scholarship for his own students.

“As a teacher at St. Olaf, the Rossing Scholarship is a wonderful opportunity for some of our physics majors to be recognized for their achievements in the classroom and the lab,” he says. “More than anything I hope that, like me, this award helps these students see that a career in physics is possible.”

Thomas D. Rossing began teaching at St. Olaf in 1957. In his first year, the Physics Department only had two professors. Now the Rossing Scholarship program, established as a gift from Thomas Rossing, has awarded a total of about 176 awards to physics students at 16 different ELCA colleges, 41 of them at St. Olaf.

While a professor at St. Olaf, Rossing researched the magnetic properties of thin films, and served as chair of the Physics Department for six years. He also taught St. Olaf’s musical acoustics course, which remains popular and continues to use a textbook authored by Rossing today. One of his enduring impacts on the Physics Department was the importance he placed on the contributions of his students in his work.

“He set the pattern of involving undergraduate students in research projects,” says Professor Emeritus of Physics James Cederberg, who began teaching at St. Olaf in 1964, several years after Thomas Rossing joined the faculty.

Although Rossing died in 2022, he continues to have an impact on physics students today. In 2005,  Thomas Rossing established the Rossing Scholarship to recognize excellence in physics scholarship among undergraduates studying at ELCA colleges and universities. 

Lucas Sletten ‘15 was a 2015 recipient of the scholarship, and went on to study quantum acoustics at the University of Colorado Boulder. After earning his Ph.D., Sletten returned to Minnesota, where he is now a scientist at a quantum computing company called Quantinuum.

Entering graduate school, many incoming students had received more focused physics training, sometimes including graduate coursework. Although St. Olaf provided tools for overcoming these challenges — including a strong education in core physics topics — Sletten struggled during his first two years to feel like the kind of “good physicist” who belonged in the program. The Rossing Scholarship helped him maintain confidence. 

“The Rossing Scholarship complemented this preparation by providing me with a specific achievement to hang my hat on, and add to my resume, that became a tangible layer of defense against self-doubt,” Sletten says.

A recent recipient of the Rossing Scholarship, Marianna Marquardt ‘24, sees the Rossing Scholarship as a way of recognizing the unique skillset liberal arts students bring. Marquardt is currently a Ph.D. student in geophysics at the Colorado School of Mines, conducting research on ice sheet thickness in Antarctica.

“It is really important for liberal arts students to be recognized for what they bring to the table – skills in both the arts and sciences, collaboration, and writing,” says Marquardt. “The Rossing Scholarship is really interested in celebrating the holistic image of a liberal arts student, rather than looking at things like publication count. It is a reinforcement that a liberal arts education in physics is incredibly valuable and will continue to be so.”