Chattanooga State College
Chattanooga State College
Dr. Lou Reinisch is currently restarting his career as a physics professor at Chattanooga State College after a failed retirement.
Previously, he was the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. Lou is a physicist with a MS and PhD from the University of Illinois in Urbana, IL. He was an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Muenster in Germany and a research associate at the Biological Research Center in Szeged, Hungary. He is a frequent public speaker, has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, and over 50 book chapters in textbooks and proceedings.
He has consulted with various companies and had two spin-off companies formed using his work in fluorescence. One company, Veritide, manufactures a fast, non-invasive, reagent-free test for the bacterial spore, anthrax. The other company is in the investigative phase of developing a non-invasive screening tool for diabetes.
Lou held the following positions: Associate and Interim Provost at NYIT (2016-2020); Dean of Arts and Sciences at Farmingdale State College (part of the SUNY system) (2013-2016); the Department Head of Physical and Earth Sciences at Jacksonville State University (2009-2013); the Dean of Science and the Director of Medical Physics at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand (2002-2008); the Director of Laser Research at the Department of Otolaryngology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (1991-2002); an Associate Professor at the Laser Biophysics Center at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (1988-1991); and an Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics at Northeastern University (1984-1988). The core of Lou’s research uses lasers and spectroscopy in medicine. He has published extensively with the use of free-electron lasers in surgical medicine. For several decades, Lou was an Associate Editor with the journal Lasers in Surgery and Medicine.
Lou is a strong advocate for improving higher level education with hands-on learning and technology-enhanced teaching. He has developed both online and hybrid courses, redesigned the classroom to enhance student collaborations and has a course in entrepreneurship that he has taught in New Zealand and China, as well as in Alabama, New York, Texas and Tennessee.
Beyond the Smoke and Mirrors of Hocus-Pocus Medical Lasers
Thursday, April 24, 2025
4:02 PM – 4:22 PM EDT