Eugene Guillian Ph.D.
College of Professional Studies - School of Education
Eugene Guillian received his S.B. degree in Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992 and went on to receive his Ph. D. in Physics (Experimental Particle Physics) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1999. During his doctoral training, he served as the on-site expert in the Level-2 Trigger system of the Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF) collaboration at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory between January 1994 and May 1996, contributing to a wide variety of measurements and discoveries, including the discovery of the top quark. After receiving his doctorate in physics, he was hired as a postdoctoral fellow at University of Maryland, College Park to perform research in solar neutrino oscillations as a member of the Super KamiokaNDE (Neturino Detection Experiment) collaboration. He managed the deployment of the deuterium-tritium neutron generator in the detector located in Gifu prefecture, Japan to perform precision calibrations. In 2002, he was hired by a team of physicists at the University of Hawaii to serve as the on-site operations manager of the Kamioka Liquid Anti-Neutrino Detector (KamLAND) experiment, also in Gifu prefecture, Japan. He was transferred to the University of Hawaii, Manoa campus in 2003 to perform research in cosmic rays and novel uses of neutrino detection for geophysics and monitoring of unauthorized nuclear activities by rogue states and organizations. In 2006, he joined a team of physicists at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada and joined the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) collaboration. There, he served as the leader of the neutral current detector (NCD) team in the solar neutrino data analysis. In 2007, he was elected to serve on the scientific board of the collaboration. Dr. Guillian has co-authored hundreds of journal articles on topics including high energy particle physics, neutrino oscillations, cosmic ray physics, and particle detector calibration methods.
In 2009, Dr. Guillian decided to pursue his long-held interest in advancing STEM education in secondary schools. He received his training in education at Hawaii Pacific University between 2009-10. As part of this training, he served as an emergency hire chemistry and physics instructor at Roosevelt High School in 2009, and performed his teaching internship at McKinley High School in 2010, both in Honolulu. He received his Hawaii State Teaching License in secondary school science in 2010. After being invited to perform an “audition” at Maryknoll High School, he was hired as the high school physics teacher in 2010 and taught there until 2019. During his time at Maryknoll, he taught Physics for freshmen, Physics for upperclassmen, Advanced Placement Physics B, Advanced Placement Physics C, Advanced Placement Physics 1, and Geometry. He also designed and developed a course called “Aeronautics and Engineering”, teaching and developing the course between 2014 to 2019. He was the robotics team supervisor from 2010 to 2018. In addition, he planned and implemented summer STEM programs for grades 4-8 students at Maryknoll School.
Dr. Guillian started to work at Hawaii Pacific University as an adjunct professor of education in 2013. From Fall 2013 through Fall 2018, he taught many courses in curriculum and pedagogy, foundations of education, and directed studies courses.
Dr. Guillian was promoted to assistant professor of education and coordinator for secondary education in January 2019.
