UNC Asheville Professor of Physics Randy Booker was honored for his teaching and mentorship with a national award presented Jan. 5 in San Diego at the winter meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers.

Booker received the 2014 Outstanding Chapter Advisor Award issued by the national Society of Physics Students (SPS). “Through his unmatched teaching and mentoring, he has impacted the lives of countless students and has seen the SPS chapter recognized for excellence repeatedly.”

The UNC Asheville chapter of the SPS has won the society’s award for excellence for 12 consecutive years with Booker as faculty advisor. The chapter’s service activities include helping K-12 students by teaching UNC Asheville Super Saturday classes and volunteering at the annual Science Olympiad hosted on campus. The chapter also has arranged behind-the-scenes tours for physics students of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, and makes physics more fun with liquid nitrogen ice cream parties and creating jack-o’-lanterns carved with famous physics equations.

The Society of Physics Students and American Association of Physics Teachers are both member organizations of the American Institute of Physics.