Biography
Assistant Gregory G. Wood joins the faculty of CSUCI after four years at CSU Northridge where he lectured in physics and pursued research in computational biophysics. In 2004 he was awarded the Golden Apple award for outstanding teaching at Northridge by the CSU Northridge Ambassadors. Dr. Wood graduated from the University of California Riverside with a Ph.D. in Physics in 2000. At Riverside, he measured a correlation length in disordered magnetic systems known as spin glasses. He took sensitive magnetization measurements at Riverside, UCSD and Saclay, France. Dr. Wood’s undergraduate studies were at UCSD where he received a B.S. in Physics in 1996. There he worked with the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences (CASS) writing a data simulator for the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer.
Dr. Wood’s current research interests involve studying order to disorder phase transitions in polypeptides by numerical simulation. The goal is to find the most efficient simulation robust enough to encompass all of the essential interactions in the system. This includes peptide-peptide and peptide-solvent interactions. Dr. Wood’s simulations pay close attention to two areas: proper summation of component entropies and long range interactions.
Dr. Wood enjoys hiking and camping with his fellow physicist and wife Tabitha along with their genetically deaf Great Dane, Aspen.
Representative Courses Taught
- PHYS 305 Thermal and Statistical Physics
- PHYS 306 Modern Physics
- PHYS 200 General Physics
- PHYS 201 General Physics II
- MATH 448 Scientific Computing
Scholarship
Keywords
Helix-coil Transition, Statistical Mechanics