Tom Hooten's Brief Bio

Greetings to everyone in my physics/engineering classes. I was born James Thomas Hooten way back in 1960, but for some reason my parents ended up calling me Tom. I’ve tried to be a James ever since, but so far I haven’t successfully trained myself to be anything but a mere Tom. Anyway, here’s a bit about Tom Hooten, whoever that is.

I graduated with a BS from the university formally known at East Texas State University in 1987 with high honors and majors in physics and mathematics. After that, I was fortunate enough to get a research assistantship and the opportunity to attend Vanderbilt University for graduate studies. I graduated with an MS in astronomy from there in 1989. Soon after my Vanderbilt years I got a job as an engineer working in Greenville, Texas at the company now known as L-3 Communications. My 13 years there were spent mainly working on large software projects for surveillance aircraft.

While working as an engineer I kept in touch with the folks in the Physics Department at ETSU, which by this time had changed its name to Texas A&M University—Commerce. The department head, Dr. Ben Doughty, knew of my interest in astronomy so he put me to work as an adjunct instructor teaching astronomy. I continued to work as a full-time engineer while I taught one astronomy course per semester at TAMUC. After doing that for about 10 years, I set my mind to change careers from engineering to teaching. It took a while to make the transition, but I made it. Since 2003, my title has been Professor of Physics and Engineering at Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas. In 2004, I was also appointed the Director of Hudnall Planetarium on the TJC campus. Check out the planetarium web site at http://planetarium.tjc.edu

Currently I am ABD (all but dissertation) in my EdD program in Higher Education at TAMUC. I have also served as the Two-Year College representative on the board of the Texas Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers and Member-At-Large for the Southwest Association of Planetariums. I am also the TJC contact for NASA’s Community College Aerospace Scholar program and a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, which is really cool. In my spare time, of which I have zero, I like to eat good food, workout, read, write, think, ride bikes, hike, shoot zombies, and do outdoorsy things. You can check out my personal web site at http://tom.hooten.com

I’m looking forward to this semester. I hope you are too.

7om