Although the female student population is the majority at California State University, Dominguez Hills–at approximately 70 percent–when Rosemary Diaz (Class of '00, B.S., physics) was an undergraduate, she was the only female physics major at the university. When she entered graduate school at UCLA, she was sometimes the only woman in the class. “It was a little nerve wracking not only because I was the only woman in the room, but also because I was one of the few Americans in the classroom and in the electrical engineering department,” Diaz recalls. “But over the last 11 years, I have seen the number of women in science steadily rising. In addition, there are also now a few female ... Read More
Physics
In Memoriam: James Susumu Imai (1939-2011)
Emeritus professor of physics James Susumu Imai died on July 8 of heart failure. He joined the physics faculty at California State University, Dominguez Hills in 1970 and taught classes in physical science, physics within clinical science lab applications, and solid state physics until retiring in 2005. Imai's students remember him best as a humorous, but thorough instructor. Daniel Gutierrez (Class of '86, B.A., physics/mathematics), a senior project engineer at The Aerospace Corporation, says that his former professor used acronyms like “FLT” - which meant, “from last time” - long before text messages were invented, to recap lecture notes from the previous class. “I remember one ... Read More
John Tracy: Senior Vice President Gives Boeing Technology its Wings
The 50th anniversary of California State University, Dominguez Hills also coincides with the centennial of the 1910 Air Meet, the first aviation exhibition to take place on the West Coast. Among the attendees of that historic event was William Boeing, who went on to create his own aviation company six years later. Today, a CSU Dominguez Hills alumnus is leading the technology efforts at The Boeing Company, the world's largest aerospace manufacturer. As senior vice president of engineering, operations and technology and the chief technology officer for Boeing, John Tracy (Class of '76, B.S., physics) is responsible for the strategic direction of more than 100,000 employees ... Read More
