Professor Emeritus Victor DeCarlo Jr.
Victor DeCarlo began teaching physics at DePauw in 1981. He retired in 2014 after thirty-three years of dedicated service to the Physics and Astronomy Department and the University.
Dr. DeCarlo was a physics/math double major at Southern Connecticut State College (B.A., 1974) and did his graduate studies at Penn State (Ph.D., Physics, 1983). His thesis work involved the calculation of cross-sections for photon-induced pion reactions with light nuclei. From 1988 to 1992, he was a Visiting Scientist at Fermilab, where he spent summers and Winter Terms writing computer code, testing detectors, and performing data analysis for experiments E-735 (Search for the Quark-Gluon Plasma) and E-800 (Precision Measurement of the Omega-Minus Magnetic Moment).
Professor DeCarlo was involved in a number of curricular projects. He worked with other members of the department on a major restructuring of the introductory physics sequence and has also developed several courses with significant interdisciplinary components, including an Honor Scholar seminar “Cosmological Questions” which he team-taught with philosophy professor Marcia McKelligan.
Dr. DeCarlo married his college sweetheart, Patricia Newman, in 1976 and they have two children, Megan and Thomas. For entertainment and relaxation, Dr. DeCarlo works crossword puzzles, plays racquetball, watches movies, and plays computer games. Born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut, he is an avid New York sports fan.