John Wallin

Dr. John Wallin is a Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) and Director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Computational Science. He holds a B.S. in Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics from Minnesota State University, Mankato (1984), and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from Iowa State University (1989). Before joining MTSU in 2010, he served as a faculty member in the Computational Science Program at George Mason University (1992–2010) and conducted research at the Naval Research Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory.

His research focuses on three primary areas: gravitational interactions in the universe using computational and observational techniques, machine learning applied to ancient Greek manuscript analysis through citizen science, and the integration of mixed reality systems into STEM education. Notable projects include developing neural networks for ancient text recognition and optimizing simulations of galaxy collisions to align with observational data.

Dr. Wallin has received a Teaching Excellence Award (1998) from George Mason University and multiple nominations for the Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award (1999, 2006). His work bridges astrophysics, data science, and education, with contributions to interdisciplinary computational methods and citizen science initiatives.

• Education:
  • B.S. Physics, Astronomy, Mathematics, Minnesota State University, 1984
  • Ph.D. Astrophysics, Iowa State University, 1989
• Key Research Projects:
  • Gravitational dynamics of interacting galaxies
  • Crowdsourced papyrus fragment classification
  • Mixed reality in STEM pedagogy

His publications span computational astrophysics, machine learning applications, and educational technology. He has led the development of software tools like JSPAM for galaxy simulations and contributed to initiatives like the Astrophysics Source Code Library.