The founding dean of the newly formed College of Physical and Mathematical Science in 1972 was Jae R.
[2] The Brigham Young University College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences consists of seven departments.
Besides astronomy the department has research groups in Acoustics; Atomic, Molecular and Optical studies; Condensed Matter; Plasma; and Theoretical and Mathematical physics.
[3] The program also works closely with the David O. McKay College of Education to train physics teachers primarily to teach in high schools.
This was largely because it was founded by Wayne B. Hales who was a physics professor and had begun photography instruction at BYU.