Dr. Michael J. Pfenning Associate Professor Physics and Nuclear Engineering Photonics Research Center michael.pfenning [at] westpoint.edu About Education Research & Publications Dr. Pfenning was born and raised on Long Island, NY. He attended the Brentwood public schools and was salutatorian of his graduating class. With a scholarship from Bausch and Lomb, he earned a B.S. in optical engineering with a minor in physics from the University of Rochester. He pursued his graduate studies at Tufts University, earning both an M.S. and Ph.D. in physics. He has held postdoctoral fellowships in the Department of Physics at the University of Guelph in Canada and the Department of Mathematics at the University of York in England. Dr. Pfenning has also worked for Certain Teed doing optical system design and Raytheon’s radar design division analyzing advanced phased array communication systems. He joined the faculty of the United States Military Academy in 2003 and earned the rank of associate professor in 2009.Dr. Pfenning is a cosmologist by training and specializes in quantum field theory in curved spacetime. Ph.D., Physics - Tufts UniversityM.S., Physics - Tufts UniversityB.S., Optical Engineering - University of Rochester Research Interests Physics, General Relativity, Quantum Field Theory