Richard P. Olenick is currently the chair of Department of Physics at University of Dallas. He was Associate Project Director of the PBS Series The Mechanical Universe and Beyond the Mechanical Universe, which accompanied this textbook and its successors. He has received numerous grants from the National Science Foundation and the US Department of Education for his work in physics education. His current project is C3P, which developed an inquiry-based curriculum for high school physics. In 1995, Dr Olenick was named Texas Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation and in 1997, he was named a Minnie Piper Steven Professor. In 2003, he became the Nancy Cain Marcus and Jeffrey A. Marcus Chair in Science and in 2005 he received the King Award from the University of Dallas, which is the highest honor the University can bestow on a faculty member.
