Dr. Tanis came to WMU in 1980 following postdoctoral appointments at Berkeley and at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He received his Ph.D. in 1976 from New York University in the area of experimental atomic collision physics, investigating fundamental interactions between ions and atoms. He has continued various and evolving aspects of this collision research, conducting studies at WMU using the tandem Van de Graaff accelerator and at numerous other laboratories in the U.S. and in Europe. Three times he spent a sabbatical leave at the Hahn-Meitner-Institute in Berlin, Germany to work with collaborators on problems of mutual interest. During his career, Dr. Tanis has published more than 120 articles in peer-reviewed journals, and presented more than 300 talks or posters at national and international conferences. To help support his research, he received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for more than 20 years, in addition to other grants from the National Science Foundation and the Research Corporation. In 1990 Dr. Tanis was elected to Fellowship in the American Physical Society, and in 1993 he received the University Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award, the highest professional recognition for a faculty member at WMU. Two times he served as department chairperson, from 1989-1993 and from 1999-2002. Dr. Tanis enjoys teaching the department's large introductory courses, and in 2001 he developed a new course, PHYS 100, entitled "How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday Life", and the associated laboratory. This course is nonmathematical in nature and is designed specifically for non-science liberal arts majors seeking a course to fulfill their general education science requirement. While the first offering of this course in 2001 had an enrollment of 45 students, it has now grown to its maximum capacity of 180 students.