James Borgardt

William W. Woolford Professor of Physics & Department Chair; Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies; Chair, Baker Institute Advisory Board of Advisors

Phone: (814)641- 6600
Email: borgardt@juniata.edu
Office: Brumbaugh Academic Center P228
Office Hours: [Hours]

Biography

Professor Borgardt came to Juniata in 1998 from the University of Arizona, where he was an Instructor in Physics.  He earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in Physics from the University of Arizona, and Bachelor of Science degrees in Physics, and Mathematics, with a minor in Global Peace and Security from the University of California at Santa Barbara. At Juniata, he is the Chair of the Physics Department, and Chair of the Baker Advisory Board for Peace and Conflict Studies.  He has taught courses principally in the Physics Department, and also in Peace and Conflict Studies (PACS). He has a demonstrated commitment to interdisciplinary work, including courses supporting Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) efforts, having co-taught courses with faculty in Anthropology, Biology, Education, Environmental Science, History, PACS, Philosophy, and Psychology.  He has also twice served as the interim Director of Health Professions, and as the Director of the Stewards of Diversity, supporting EDI initiatives.

Dr. Borgardt co-developed the Toolkit for Departments Under Threat, and has been a contributor to Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) for the American Institute of Physics.  He helped start Juniata’s Women in Physics chapter, and is on the American Institute of Physics (AIP) council for the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) Equity Achievement (SEA) Change Project, advancing EDI initiatives in physics and astronomy.  He has served two terms as the elected President of Sigma Pi Sigma, the national physics honor society, and has been the faculty advisor for SPS since 1998, during which time the Juniata chapter has been selected as an “Outstanding Chapter” by the national organization each year.

Dr. Borgardt has been a Visiting Professor of Physics at Cochin University of Science and Technology in Kerala, India, where he directed the study abroad program in 2002-2003, and was the 2003-2004 Robert Jay Lifton Fellow at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Center on Terrorism.  He has collaborated as a visiting research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories working on research on radiation portal monitors from 2005-2012, and served in the International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau in the Office of Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism (ISN/WMDT) at the U.S. State Department.  In this capacity he served as the 2012-2013 AIP Executive Branch Fellow, supporting the international nuclear forensics work of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT), and Nuclear Forensics International Technical Working Group (ITWG). At Juniata, he continued to support the State Department as the lead organizer for a series of international virtual table-top exercises maturing the concept of national nuclear forensics libraries from 2013-2020, and has been a visiting scientist since 2020in the Radiochemistry Division at the Los Alamos National Laboratory where he continues this nuclear forensics science policy work.