Dr. David Harrison, retired Senior Lecturer in the Department of Physics, passed away on July 22nd, 2025. After obtaining his Ph.D. in experimental high energy physics here in 1972, with Dr. J.D. Prentice, David spent his subsequent career here as a Lecturer and physics-pedagogy innovator and researcher, until his retirement in 2011. His distinguished career included innovations to pedagogy in computational physics, error analysis, laboratory education, and other areas. His legacy includes leadership, development, and implementation of the PHY131/132 “Practicals” pedagogy and the associated Practicals rooms renovations. This work enhanced learning outcomes and broadened the appeal of Physics to first-year students, which has had a marked influence on our undergraduate program since then. His ideas and work were influential and recognized nationally and internationally, to the benefit of the Department.
The University of Toronto’s Department of Physics Remembers Dr. David Harrison
We offer our condolences to David Harrison’s family on the passing of our fine colleague, who served as a leader in our educational work. This is a collection of tributes for David received from our faculty and staff. As much as he will be missed, these remembrances speak to the important legacy of his work in the Department and its impact on the Canadian Physics Education community.
Paul Kushner, Professor and Chair
Dave Harrison was a true original. He was talented in a range of interests outside the classroom and his life’s work was in Physics education. I co-taught with him in several courses throughout our long association. Early on, we competed for the best student evaluations in PHY110Y, our generalist first year undergraduate course, and for a couple of years we worked together on the First Year Undergraduate Laboratory. Under his ongoing leadership a mainframe computer was dedicated to undergraduates, giving them unusually early access to computers for data analysis, and forming the basis of the excellent facilities that now exist. He designed a multitude of magnificently creative animations to explain basic physics and coordinated a vast collection of written documents for undergraduates culled from his own and colleagues’ lecture notes. He pioneered some of the Physics Education Research in the Department, and his application of the findings in that nascent field led him to propose a completely different method of teaching experimental physics. The resulting transformation of our undergraduate laboratories, which included an architectural redesign and a revolution in the training of our Teaching Assistants led to the system that continues to this day. His interest in Eastern philosophy and his wide-ranging intelligence gave his teaching of physics a vitality and depth that I much admired. His work resulted in his being awarded the CAP Gold Medal for Excellence in Teaching. Dave did not suffer fools gladly, which of course did not go down well with fools, and his candour and integrity demanded respect. His contribution to undergraduate teaching in the Department of Physics is his lasting legacy.
Tony Key, Professor Emeritus
David was always passionate about all his many interests. When I was Undergraduate Associate Chair, he and I had many “vigorous discussions" during the design and construcQon of our undergraduate PracQcal Rooms, but in the end he was usually right. We also shared an interest in scienQfic uncertainty and undergraduate labs. I have oSen quoted David’s statement that "ASer 4 decades of marking labs, I think I can finally disQnguish between an A and a B lab report.”, which aSer much analysis of undergraduate oral exams I actually managed to show was an almost dead accurate assessment of the (Full-Width-at-Half-Maximum) consistency between different markers.
David Bailey, Professor Emeritus
David Harrison almost singlehandedly revolutionized undergraduate physics teaching at UofT, especially of lab courses. This took many years of relentless work, which suited his dedicated no-BS approach to life. His sisyphean efforts put UofT on the map nationally for teaching innovation. I will always remember him as a "cool guy", with a pony tail to match, who showed me "The Way of Physics". He will be sorely missed.
Stephen Morris, Professor Emeritus
In my opinion, David was the smartest person I have ever known. Not only did he know physics, but he knew everything about sports, musical instruments, motorcycles and everyday life in general. He was the first person to introduce computers in the lab connected to coding. When I came to the department 31 years ago and I ran into David in the hallway and said, "Pleased to meet you Dr. Harrison", he stopped me right away and said, “Please call me David.” That day I felt very comfortable working in the department.
Phil Scolieri, Learning Services Staff
He was a respected colleague who was involved in many innovations in our department. Always open to ideas, he helped us enter an age of UG computing, improved our laboratories and was an advocate and support to our students. He has been missed since his retirement.
Pekka Sinervo, Professor
I wanted to add my voice to the plaudits for David. He was a unique individual, deeply caring and concerned about his students (& humanity in general), but always ready to speak his mind without pulling any punches, or being afraid to receive them when people objected to what he had to say (which was often the case). He devoted his career to innovating in teaching, to researching how we should do it better, and also to conveying to his students some of the deepest ideas about quantum mechanics long before any of his "researcher" colleagues probably even knew the word "entanglement." I was amazed to discover this when I first arrived at Toronto, and started using the web resources he'd developed for quantum mechanics in my classes right away. I wish I'd gotten to know him sooner, and better, but I always enjoyed and felt enriched by whatever discussion we had (about the interpretations and implications of quantum physics, about pedagogy and student/teacher psychology, or just about "how the hippies saved physics"), whether in person or later just over social media. His legacy lives on in the department and beyond, even among those who never got to know him in person.
I posted some of these reflections online, and was touched by the responses this elicited, from people I hadn't realized had any connection to David; several people wrote things like "he was responsible for my enthusiasm for physics"; one physics prof said "His talk on Bell's inequalities [at a CAP talk for undergrads around 1998] piqued my interest in fundamental issues in quantum physics . . . This talk eventually led to me doing a PhD in the area. . . I later TAed undergraduate labs for him. I still use many tricks he taught in his annual TA training session." Another quantum foundations prof, from the US, writes "Oh no! I never met him but I regularly use his websites for teaching. His derivation of Bell's inequalities is fun to do in class. That's so sad."
Farewell, David, and thanks for all the wisdom.
Aephraim Steinberg, Professor