Anacapa Scholar: Dr. Jon Swift

Dr. Jonathan Swift shares his passion for the cosmos with the community.
Inaugurated in 2006, the Anacapa Fellowship and Visiting Scholars Program brings artists, scholars, and other specialists to campus with the explicit mission to “complement Thacher’s faculty, broaden students’ experience, and reinforce the School’s distinctiveness among America’s top boarding schools.” Through a dynamic blend of workshops, lectures, demonstrations, concerts, formal and informal interchange, these talented guests bring expertise that both extends and expands.

Our most recent visitor to campus, Dr. Jon Swift, is a postdoctoral researcher at the California Institute of Technology. He received his M.S. in Physics from UCLA in 1996, and went on to receive both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from UC Berkeley. In his week long stay, Jon engaged with students and faculty in all areas of life here at the School. Chris Vyhnal, science department chair and the one responsible for organizing Jon's visit, stated it best in his reflections on Jon's impact on our community:

It's incredibly rare to have a scientist doing the kind of cutting-edge research that he is who can articulate its significance to high school students so clearly. His manner in the classroom is incredibly relaxed and engaging even though the material is pretty heady stuff. It's been really stimulating to have him here—he's provided material that will absolutely enrich my future astronomy and chemistry classes.
 
Not only that, but he threw himself into the community with reckless abandon... teaching an African drumming song to a freshman music class, deriving the number of planets in the galaxy with calculus classes, exploring exoplanet atmospheric chemistry with chemistry classes, and discussing exoplanet detection with physics and robotics classes. And he joined the rock climbing group one afternoon and rode with the Horse Program! He's soaked up as much of the Thacher experience as he contributed to it...

Students were also happy to reflect and comment on their experience with our Anacapa Scholar"

Jon Swift had a lot of truly incredible things to say that increased my knowledge of how complex and amazing this universe is and how little we really know about it! - Casey Gaughan '16

Jon was a very, very good speaker and made it easy for me to understand complex material, such as chemistry in space. - Tycho Koll '15

I went to his presentation on Tuesday night and attended an AP Chemistry class where he gave some further explanation of what he was talking about. He does a lot of cool stuff, and he explains it eloquently and clearly. 
I really enjoyed both sessions, and they further sparked my interest for science, especially astronomy. I liked how he constantly made connections between our daily lives and the cosmic life; that concept intrigued me the most. - T.J. Kim '13

In calculus, astronomy, and chemistry he holds a vast wealth of knowledge. More importantly, he is a teacher so excellent that he naturally conveyed his deep understanding of the material. In my eyes, he was the epitome of an academic: a man who did not just sit around and conjecture, but worked through incredibly fascinating challenges to find truth in the universe. - Marshall Fisher '15

What struck me most about Jon Swift was the attention he gave to each and every student who asked him a question, and his enthusiasm when answering it. He had a way of projecting his passion for the universe onto each one of us, so that people like me found themselves spending their entire Friday night up at the observatory, simply for the sake of learning about our surroundings.
- Gracie Farese '13

He's what some might call, a true renaissance man. - Sarah Ratsimbazafy '13
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