Featured Faculty
David P. Wick
School of Individualized Study
Dr. David Wick completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Mechanical Engineering and master’s and doctorate in Physics from Clarkson University. He conducted his PhD research at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory before returning to Clarkson University where he served as an Associate Professor, Director of First Year Physics, and Research Director for several programs that promote the access and success of underrepresented students in STEM.
He joined RIT in 2012 where he currently promotes assessment and research efforts on behalf of the Division for Diversity & Inclusion as Assistant Vice President for Research and Assessment and is a faculty member in the School of Individualized Studies.
Dr. Wick’s scholarship spans a variety of topics including experimental and theoretical turbulence research, air sampling assessment and methodology, STEM education, applied psychology, and diversity research. In particular, he has conducted flow field measurements of turbulent mixing layers in wind tunnel experiments and contributed to the development of bounding methods for estimating energy dissipation in turbulent shear flows. He has collaborated on work to better characterize air monitoring systems (evacuated canisters) used to quantify human exposure to airborne contaminants by modeling the impact and duration of spike (high amplitude) concentrations on sampling methods.
His passion for STEM education research includes contributions to enhancing the undergraduate STEM experience through the design of innovative modeling-based laboratory projects that simulate a “research experience” for science and engineering majors. Additionally, he developed a low-dimensional predictive model for identifying students considered to be most at risk of underperforming in early STEM foundation courses, allowing for the development of strategic interventions to improve retention in STEM majors. He is currently collaborating with members of the Institute for STEM Education at his former institution on a longitudinal study that examines the historical impact on student success of implementing a sequence of targeted interventions that includes Spatial Visualization training, alternate pathway recommendations for engineering students, and the inclusion of a co-calculus support course.
At RIT he has collaborated with Dr. Jennifer Bailey (Biomedical Engineering) on the assessment of embedding Spatial Visualization training in STEM courses and Dr. Jeffrey Burnette (Sociology and Anthropology) on developing diversity metrics and assessing trends in college enrollments of American Indian and Alaska Natives.
Dr. Wick has received funding from agencies such as the National Science Foundation, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, NYS Department of Education, and Procter & Gamble. His research collaborations have included mentoring over 40 undergraduate and graduate students (MS and PhD) and have resulted in 23 peer reviewed publications.
Reference: Jeffrey D. Burnette & Jason T. Younker & David P. Wick, 2021. "Statistical Termination or Fewer Self-Identified Students: What Is Causing the Decline in American Indian and Alaska Native College Enrollments?," Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy, Springer, vol. 4(4), pages 237-256, December.
David P Wick
Associate Professor
School of Individualized Studies