Joe Wolfe


Joe Wolfe is an Australian physicist, composer and professor at University of New South Wales Sydney.

Life

Wolfe grew up in Queensland. He graduated in physics from the University of Queensland in 1974 and with a PhD from the Australian National University in 1979. He worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation and the Australian National University. In 1982 he was appointed lecturer at UNSW Sydney, where he is now a professor. He collaborates regularly with researchers in France and was an invited professor at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris in 1993.

Scientific research and teaching

His early research was in cellular biophysics, primarily initially studying the physical injuries in cells at low temperature and at low hydration. Around the turn of the century, with colleague John Smith, he set up a research group in acoustics, concentrating on the physics of the voice and music acoustics.
As well as classroom teaching, Wolfe has produced multimedia internet resources, which have won a number of international awards. Music Acoustics is a large site that provides much introductory material about the voice and musical instruments, as well as popular versions of the Wolfe lab's research.
Einsteinlight was made for the centenary of Special Relativity. Physclips is a large set of multimedia resources in introductory physics, and Particles to Planets is a MOOC on Coursera.

Music composition

Wolfe has composed music for symphony orchestra and chamber ensembles, including a trumpet concerto and a quartet for flute, saxophone, bassoon and cello.

Prizes and awards