Student Earns Excellence in Physics Award

MELBOURNE, FLA.—Stephan Mehling has earned Florida Tech’s James G. Potter Award for Excellence in Physics. He qualified for the award by earning straight A’s in all his introductory physics courses and labs. During the competition, he scored above his peers based on his thorough answers to a series of difficult physics questions.

A resident of Westampton, N.J., and a junior, Mehling is an aerospace engineering major.
Potter, the award’s namesake, retired as head of the physics department at Texas A&M University and became head of the physics department at Florida Tech in 1968. In the 1980s, he retired as department head, but continued operating the physics laboratories and training graduate student assistants as instructors.

The Potter Award has been given in his memory since his death in 1992.
Florida Tech has been named one of America’s best colleges by U.S. News & World Report for 17 consecutive years, a “Best Buy” by Barron’s Best Buys in College Education, and is ranked as a Best Southeastern College by The Princeton Review. For the second straight year, Washington Monthly magazine has named Florida Tech the top private university in Florida and Fiske Guide to Colleges designated Florida Tech one of 14 top technical institutions in the United States.