Biography
Dr. Bill Finney grew up in Fulton, New York. Fulton is north of Syracuse in Central New York. He lived for a few years in Ann Arbor, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois before moving to Central Wyoming.
Dr. Finney brings a dynamic learning experience to his students and has been at CWC for more than 10 years. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan from 2002-05. Prior to teaching at CWC, Dr. Finney was a senior research associate and a visiting assistant professor at the Illinois Institute of T4echnology in Chicago. He was also a research program coordinator in the department of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.
Dr. Finney has found many reasons to love Central Wyoming College. Among them, he has been able to work with outstanding faculty from many different disciplines, something that would be much harder to do at a large four-year institution. Dr. Finney has found that this cross-pollination has inspired many lessons in his chemistry and physics classes. Here, he has had the opportunity to teach a wide variety of courses. He gets to learn something new all the time and continually grows as an instructor.
Dr. Finney loves that he gets to know the students in all of his classes as a whole person. He finds it motivating to see them grow as young adults. The size of his classes allows him to interact one-on-one with students and share his knowledge and passion for his discipline. Dr. Finney likes to tell people that every day his students are among ‘today’s lucky 10,000.’ He gets to show them something that, while it may not be new, it is new to them! Seeing their excitement keeps him excited about what he is doing!
“There is a particular sound to a lab full of happy students, I look forward to that, knowing that they will learn best when they are enjoying what they are doing,” he said. “I also love getting to know my students as well as I do. Getting to see them grow as young adults is very motivating. I get to teach a wide variety of courses here, giving me something new to learn as well as helping me grow as an instructor every year.”
Degrees
- Bachelor of Science in Chemistry, State University of New York-Binghamton
- Doctorate of Philosophy in Chemistry with an emphasis in physical chemistry, particularly molecular spectroscopy, Syracuse University
Accomplishments
- Has had more than 20 articles published on a variety of topics including non-invasive blood glucose measurement, fluorosilicate hydrolysis and bone biomechanics.
- Society of Applied Spectroscopy’s 2006 William F Megger’s Award for the Outstanding Paper of the Year recipient for subsurface probing in diffusely scattering media using spatially offset Raman spectroscopy. Matousek P, Clark IP, Draper ERC, Morris MD, Goodship AE, Everall N, Towrie M, Finney WF, Parker AW. 2005 Applied Spectroscopy, 59, 393-400.
- Award for Excellence in Service to Students from CWC’s chapter of the National Society of Leadership and Success in 2017.
- Project lead for CWC’s participation in Wyoming INBRE and is the director of the West Central Regional Science Fair.
