In Memoriam: Mary Mogge
Dean’s Circle member and Physics Professor Emerita Mary Mogge passed away unexpectedly on Thursday, November 22. She was 80 years old.
Mogge had a common bond with 博88亚洲’s students, like about half the students at CPP, she was a first-generation college student. Her mother had only two years of high school but encouraged Mary to go to college. She attended Carleton College where she was one of only three women in the physics program. Mogge obtained her M.A. in Physics from State University of New York at Stony Brook, and her Ph.D. in Theoretical Particle Physics from Florida State University.
Mogge began teaching physics at 博88亚洲 in 1979 and served as Physics and Astronomy Department Chair from 2001 to 2007. She became Professor Emerita in 2010 and was an inaugural member of the Dean’s Circle, an advisory board for the College of Science, founded in 2020.
Physics Professor Nina Abramzon recalls, “She was the department chair who hired me. At the time she was the only woman in the Physics Department. She was a mentor to me, even after she retired, I reached out to her for advice.”
Physics Professor Kurt Vandervoort shared, “she actively sought to increase departmental diversity and was a major factor in contributing to the much larger percentage of female faculty in our department. She worked extremely hard and was a great colleague.”
Mogge served on the national board of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) from 2007-2011, and president from 2015-2016. She had been a coach and academic director of the U.S. Physics Team, made up of high school students, that competes in the International Physics Olympiad and led them to several victories. In that position she was a role model for high school students, particularly women, who have a passion for physics. She also served on the Advanced Placement Physics C Development Committee.
Abramzon said, “In 2012 she organized an AAPT conference at CPP. When I chaired the Committee for the Conference of Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP), Mary Mogge was on that committee and we drew on her experience for the CUWiP conference we hosted in 2018.”
As a scholarship recipient herself, Mogge was keenly aware of the challenges that college students face. As a faculty member, she became familiar with the personal struggles of CPP students. This awareness inspired Mogge to start supporting physics department scholarships. As time progressed and she was able to do more she made an endowed gift to ensure that physics scholarships would continue. In addition to her generous support of scholarships she named the College of Science in her estate.
In an interview conducted in 2019, Mogge said, “I’d like to see college as a right for everyone who can manage it but in the meantime what I can do now is fund some students. As a professor I liked nurturing the students and seeing them grow. I see supporting students as an investment in the future.”
Mary Mogge is survived by her two daughters, and husband Allen Holliday.