Distinguished Teaching Award recipient Greg Kilcup believes one-on-one teaching is the best way to get through to a student.

A professor in physics, he has taught classes ranging from the undergraduate 130 and 260 series to advanced graduate classes.

Kilcup tries to avoid too much lecturing, he said. He has offered not only office hours but also study groups, both in and outside class. His suggestion to meet with groups at coffee shops has been well received.

“A number of students came, and it seemed to be helpful,” he said.

To minimize lecturing, he has divided his classes into groups and assigned problems to each. He assists with each group, answering questions and guiding them in the right direction.

Kilcup said many times the students would be so involved in solving equations there would be no need to guide them.

His background in universities goes beyond his own schooling. Kilcup grew up on college campuses, including the University of Chicago, the University of Washington and the University of Notre Dame, where his father taught as a professor.

Kilcup became interested in physics during his high school years, once picking up a book on quantum field theory and reading it, though understanding very little.

“I’ve kind of come full circle,” he said, smiling.

Graduating from his Seattle high school at 16, he deferred acceptance to Yale for a year off at the suggestion of his parents. During that year and for a few summers afterward he wrote computer programming, translating codes to database.

Not quite certain of his life’s work, he took a triple major when he later enrolled at Yale. Upon finding himself doing physics problems when bored with computer work, something clicked.

He dropped philosophy and concentrated on physics and math, working in a special accelerated program in which he earned both undergraduate and master’s degrees in physics.

Kilcup went on to earn a physics doctorate at Harvard University, followed by post-doctorates at Cornell University and Brown University. He finished at Brown in 1990 and moved to Columbus.

“Part of the reason I’m here at Ohio State is the Ohio Supercomputer Center,” he says, referring to the advanced computer resource center for teachers and graduate students on north campus.

There, he assists with computer training, working with the computers and answering questions from students. Although his primary interest is physics, computers run a close second.

He finds ways to fuse the two by working with the Lattice field theory, a computer-intensive physics program, and initiating computer and web usage into his classes and conferences.

“One time he lectured from the Web,” said Louis Strigari, a graduate student who took Kilcup’s quantum field theory class. “He had his notes on there, too, but he also was in a corner of the screen, talking and explaining the lecture. It was pretty cool.”

Mark Schreiber, a longtime friend, said Kilcup is someone who’s always sharing information to help others.

“He’s very interested in people in a broad way, people outside the academic world as well as within,” Schreiber said. “He’s very good at sharing what he knows with people.”

Kilcup throws himself into his interests, reading as much as he can and gathering knowledge in various areas. Besides piano and tennis, he has recently concentrated on something new every year, including chess, pool, scuba diving and kayaking. He reads works by French authors, plays the harpsichord every day and spends time with friends.

His eyes light up when he spends time with his 8-year-old son, Max, whom he affectionately calls a “challenge.” Max calls his dad “the absent-minded professor.”

The Distinguished Teaching Award was based on student feedback, evaluations and nominations. Recipients get a cash award of $3,000 and a $1,200 salary increase through funds generated by the Alumni Association.

While in high school in Seattle, Kilcup became friends with fellow classmate Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. Kilcup turned down lucrative job offerings from Microsoft in the late ’80’s.

“I told him I’ll do physics as long as it’s fun,” he said.