Rate My Professor Hector Mireles

Hector C. Mireles served as Professor and Chair of the Physics and Astronomy Department at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona (Cal Poly Pomona) from 2002 until 2022. He earned an A.S. from Bosco Tech in 1985, a B.S. in physics from the University of California, Irvine in 1989, a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Texas at Austin in 2000, and held a doctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Dynamics in Göttingen, Germany. Elected department chair in 2016, he led the hiring of four faculty members, laboratory renovations, creation of an industry advisory board, and expansion of faculty roles across ranks. During the Spring 2020 shift to online instruction amid COVID-19, he purchased equipment and helped produce lab videos. Mireles contributed to university governance as a member of the College of Science Dean’s strategic leadership team and the Cal Poly Pomona Academic Senate.

Mireles specialized in magnetism and thin-film physics, publishing on topics such as surface-step-induced magnetic anisotropy and double magnetic switching of Fe films on W(100) surfaces (Journal of Applied Physics, 2001; Physical Review Letters, 2000), negative differential magnetization (Physical Review B, 2003), optoelastic manipulation of colloidal particles in liquid crystals (PNAS, 2011), and developing a Kerr microscope for solid-state physics labs, which graced the cover of American Journal of Physics (2014). He advanced undergraduate research and education, mentoring Latinx students like Angel Martinez (BS physics 2009), who earned a Ph.D. and became an assistant professor at Northern Arizona University, and Anatol Hoemke (BS physics 2006), now physics lab manager at Loyola Marymount University. Mireles championed diversity, serving as 2021 secretary of the National Society of Hispanic Physicists, co-hosting the 2018 Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics, and organizing monthly luncheons for women faculty. His leadership fostered departmental growth and supported underrepresented groups in physics.