Department of Physics
Heads of the course and department
| William Barton Rogers | 1866-1868 |
| Edward C. Pickering | 1868-1877 |
| Charles R. Cross | 1877-1917 |
| Edwin Bidwell Wilson | 1917-1922 |
| Charles Ladd Norton | 1922-1930 |
| John Clarke Slater | 1930-1952 |
| Nathaniel Herman Frank | 1952-1961 |
| William W. Buechner | 1961-1966 |
| Victor F. Weisskopf | 1966-1972 |
| Herman Feschbach | 1972-1983 |
| Jerome I. Friedman | 1983-1988 |
| Robert J. Birgeneau | 1988-1991 |
| Ernest J. Moniz | 1991-1997 |
| Marc A. Kastner | 1998-2007 |
| Edmund Bertschinger | 2007-2013 |
| Peter Fisher | 2013- |
Physics was taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from the time classes were first offered in 1865. William B. Rogers, the founder and first president of MIT, was the first professor of physics. In 1869 Rogers established the “Physical Laboratory,” probably the first laboratory for instruction in physics in the United States. The lab was designed and equipped by Edward Pickering, the first director of the Rogers Lab. In 1872 the lab was renamed the Rogers Laboratory of Physics. Physics became Course VIII in 1873.
In 1882 the first course in electrical engineering in the United States was developed and administered within the Department of Physics. It became a separate department, Course VI, in 1902.
Prepared by the Department of Distinctive Collections, MIT Libraries
October 1995; updated 2014, April 2020