As a DCCCD professor, Dr. Zhujun Li has an astronomical job. “I want my students to appreciate science and be in awe of the universe,” she says.
That’s no small task, but then, Dr. Li has always been a bit of an overachiever. After receiving the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree in her native China, she came to the United States to do graduate work. Skipping over a master’s degree, she went directly to earning a doctorate in physics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Then it was straight to work conducting nuclear physics research through a federal grant at Jefferson National Lab while teaching physics at Christopher Newport University in Virginia. It wasn’t exactly simple stuff, specializing in studying photonuclear and electronuclear reactions while teaching at the university level and conducting more research. Then, her family moved to the Dallas area, and she switched high-powered careers in midstream. For seven years, she worked as a senior software engineer for telecommunications clients, including industry giants AT&T and Nortel Networks.
In 2003, she joined the faculty of Richland College and was finally able to merge her love of science with her love of teaching, freed from the demands of high-level research. “I have already done research; now I really want to teach,” she says. “I do push my students to work hard, though. I want them not only to grasp the subject but to improve their analytical thinking skills as well.”
Having taught at both the university and community college levels, Dr. Li says she prefers her current job. “Here, students are not lost in the crowd,” she says. “They have access to me as the professor and can ask me questions. Community college is the very best place for students.”
She also appreciates the rewards of teaching versus the rewards of nuclear physics research. “As a researcher, you might take your entire career to accomplish something very small,” she says. “With teaching, you see your reward right in front of you.”
For Zhujun Li, it all began here.