Stony Brook University

This interview is part of a series conducted during research for the book Tunnel Visions, a history of the Superconducting Super Collider. It primarily covers physicist John (Jack) Marburger’s experiences as the president of the State University of New York at Stony Brook between 1980 and 1994, including his service between 1988 and 1994 as chairman of the Board of Trustees of Universities Research Association (URA), the consortium that operated Fermilab and oversaw construction of the SSC. Marburger discusses his perspective on the termination of the Isabelle collider project at nearby Brookhaven National Lab and his service on URA’s Council of Presidents, as well as URA’s development of proposals to manage and operate the SSC in 1987 and 1988. He recounts the unusualness of the Department of Energy’s stipulation of a teaming arrangement with an industrial partner, linking it to a changing management culture at DOE associated with environmental contamination at nuclear weapons production sites. He also offers detailed memories of the selection process for the SSC Lab Director and the SSC Central Design Group’s discontent over the process. Reflecting on construction of the SSC, he criticizes DOE oversight of the SSC project as heavy-handed and disruptive. He remembers URA’s resistance to pressure to dismiss SSC Lab Director Roy Schwitters as criticism of the project grew, but he also suggests that Schwitters should have been paired with an experienced high-level executive. In addition, Marburger recalls deliberations behind major changes to the SSC’s magnet apertures and beam injection energy, as well as behind a decision not to descope the project. As the interview concludes, he opines that hype surrounding the project detracted from its credibility with key players in Congress and the scientific community.

Interview with Sally Dawson, Senior Scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory and head of the high energy theory group there. Dawson recounts her childhood in Cleveland where her father was a rocket scientist for NASA. She describes her undergraduate education at Duke and how she came to focus on physics. Dawson cites the formative influence of Howard Georgi during her graduate work on proton decay and precision calculations at Harvard. She discusses her postdoctoral research in the theory group at Fermilab and her focus on some of the theoretical implications of the Tevatron project. Dawson surveys the research on supersymmetry and the Higgs mass at that time, and she explains her decision to join the scientific staff at Brookhaven where Mike Creutz and Bill Marciano were doing research of interest to her. Dawson discusses her long-term efforts to search for new physics beyond the Standard Model and she describes her book the Higgs Hunter’s Guide. She surveys what is known and unknown about the Higgs boson, and she discusses the g-2 muon experiment at Brookhaven and its relation to the current experiment at Fermilab. Dawson explains the value of the Snowmass process in achieving a high-level and future-oriented view of where the field is headed, and why the discovery of the Higgs demonstrated the overall accuracy of the Standard Model. She surveys the new questions that can be probed following the Higgs discovery and the complementary nature of neutrino precision measurements for this research. At the end of the interview, Dawson discusses her outreach efforts to emphasize that particle theory is not “dead,” why she sees advisory work as a vital service to the field, and why over the course of her career, experimentalists have provided more guidance to theorists, and not vice-versa.

In this interview, Rich Peppin speaks with Susan Blaeser about her time working for the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), where she served as Standards Manager for the ASA Committee on Standards (COS). Blaeser begins by recounting her childhood in New York City and Long Island. She began college at Nassau Community College and completed her degree at Stony Brook University. Upon graduation, Blaeser went to work at the Department of Social Services of Nassau County, where she worked for 13 years. Before joining the team at ASA, she also worked as a village clerk treasurer for a small village in Nassau County. Blaeser describes applying to and accepting the job at ASA and how she has enjoyed her work there. She also speaks about serving as a representative and secretary at ISO (International Organization for Standardization) meetings.

Interview with Nan Phinney, retired Distinguished Staff Scientist at SLAC. Phinney recounts her childhood in Chicago and her education in Catholic private schools. She describes her undergraduate education at Michigan State where she majored in physics – despite being discouraged by many men that this was not an appropriate field of study for women. Phinney describes the excitement and benefits of focusing on particle physics during such a fundamental era of discovery and she explains her decision to pursue a Ph.D. in physics with Jack Smith at Stony Brook. She discusses her involvement in efforts to discover the Z boson, and she describes her work at CERN. Phinney describes her interest in linear colliders and the circumstances leading to her employment at SLAC. She discusses her initial work on the control system for the SLC and explains how networking issues presented the biggest technical challenge for the project. Phinney describes the international culture of collaboration with projects at CERN and DESY, and she explains the impact of the B factory at SLAC. She discusses her role in the creation of the NLC and the mechanical breakdown leading to the end of the SLC. Phinney describes the origins of the ILC and some of the significant developments in superconductivity in the early 2000s. At the end of the interview, Phinney describes current research on electron-positron colliders, she discusses her work with the APS, and she explains how SLAC has changed both culturally and scientifically over the decades.

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Daniel Z. Freedman, Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics and Physics at MIT and long-term visiting professor at Stanford. Freedman explains his understanding of the term’s mathematical physics and physical mathematics, and he bemoans the broad decoupling of experiment and theory in physics. He recounts his upbringing in West Hartford, Connecticut, and he describes his undergraduate education at Wesleyan. Freedman describes his early attachment to theory and his graduate work at the University of Wisconsin, where he worked under the direction of Ray Sawyer on Regge poles. He discusses his postdoctoral research as a NATO fellow in Europe at CERN and Imperial College London, and he conveys the sense of excitement at the time about the weak and strong interactions. Freedman describes his appointment at UC Berkeley before joining the Institute for Advanced Study, and he explains the opportunity that led to his faculty job at Stony Brook. He reflects on his interactions with Yang and he narrates the origins of supersymmetry, and shortly after, the origins of supergravity. Freedman explains what is “super” in supergravity, supersymmetry, and super-space, and he describes why the reality of supersymmetry must be true even if we lack the tools to see it. He explains his decision to move to MIT, and he connects the arc from the 1984 string revolution to the discovery of AdS/CFT in 1997. Freedman describes winning the Dirac medal and subsequently the Breakthrough Prize, which he understood as confirmation in the community about the importance of supergravity. At the end of the interview, Freedman connects his work to larger questions in cosmology and astrophysics, he expresses surprise by the increasing centrality of mathematics to physics, he explains his early work on neutrino scattering and why after 40 years, his original intuition has been vindicated.

Interview with Warren W. Buck, Chancellor Emeritus, Professor of Physics Emeritus at the University of Washington at Bothell, and Adjunct Professor of Physics and Special Advisor to the President for Equity in the 21st Century at William and Mary. Buck recounts his upbringing in segregated Washington DC, his early interests in science, and the opportunities that led to his admission to Lincoln University for his undergraduate degree before transferring to Morgan State. He discusses the racial strife and the civil rights movements of the late 1960s, his interest in physics as an undergraduate, and his decision to pursue a graduate degree at William and Mary. He explains his decision to leave after getting a master’s degree to teach at Bowie State and to be more involved in Black student organizing, and he describes his thesis research on deuteron theory under the direction of Franz Gross. Buck describes sailing in the Bahamas after graduate school and his appointments at Stony Brook and Los Alamos, and he explains his interests in nucleon-nucleon interactions. He describes a formative research year in Paris and his subsequent faculty position at Hampton University, his collaboration with Jefferson Lab, and his work introducing theoretical mesonic form factors. Buck discusses meeting Lillian McDermott and his recruitment to help build a new UW satellite campus at Bothell as chancellor. He surveys his accomplishments in that role and explains his decision to retire, and at the end of the interview, Buck discusses his interest in Buddhism and how Buddhist philosophy can be understood in the context of nuclear theory.

Interview with Frank Shu, University Professor emeritus at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego, and Founder and CEO of Astron Solutions Corporation. Shu describes his current work on climate mitigation through his company, Astron Solutions Corporation, and he reflects on how his expertise in physics is useful for this endeavor. He recounts his family origins in Wenzhou, China, and their experiences during the Japanese occupation. Shu describes his family’s journey to the United States through Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the opportunities that led to his undergraduate study in physics at MIT. He describes his early interests in gravitational collapse, and he explains his decision to pursue graduate research at Harvard, where he worked on density wave theory of spiral structure under the direction of Max Krook. Shu explains his broader interest in star formation and his work at Stony Brook before taking a faculty position at Berkeley. He describes the “inside out” collapse model and the formative influence of Peter Goldreich. Shu explains how he came to lead Tsing Hua University and his achievements in raising its stature before joining the faculty at San Diego, and he discusses his original interests in climate change research. He describes the Heat Exchanger (HX) Project and how his research on nuclear energy has therapeutic benefits for cancer patients. Shu discusses his patent on sealed carbon fiber reinforced carbon nanotubes and the hurdles that are preventing the widespread adoption of molten salt technology. At the end of the interview, Shu describes the importance of taking multi-pronged approach to climate mitigation and that humanity’s best response at this point is to recognize climate change as an emergency.

Interview with Arthur Eisenkraft, Professor of Physics, Distinguished Professor of Science Education, and Director of the Center of Science and Math in Context (COSMIC) at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. He explains the origins of COSMIC and its role in his transition from high school to university teaching, and he discusses his current focus on the Wipro Science Education Fellowship Program. Eisenkraft surveys current trends in science pedagogy, and he reflects on the value of UMass Boston’s diverse student population for his research. He recounts his upbringing in Queens, his strong public school education, and his decision to go to Stony Brook for college where he started to think about education in scientific terms. Eisenkraft discusses his experience with the Peace Corps in Nepal before returning to Stony Brook for graduate school to work under Cliff Swartz on Fourier optics. He discusses his PhD research at NYU in science education and he explains his decision to pursue high school teaching. Eisenkraft surveys his advisory work for the National Research Council and how the NAEP Frameworks Project started. He explains his strategic partnership with Toshiba, and he describes the feedback mechanisms that inform his research. At the end of the interview, Eisenkraft frames teaching as a means to learning, and he conveys his interest in watching how higher education plans to combat systemic racism in the future.

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian, interviews Paul Grannis, emeritus professor of physics at Stony Brook University. He recounts his childhood in Ohio and describes his early interests and talents in math and science. He explains his decision to attend Cornell University and his reasons to focus on engineering physics while also developing an interest in theory. Grannis describes his graduate work at Berkeley, where he joined the Chamberlain group, which had focused on aligning the proton spin with the magnetic field by transferring the electron polarization to the proton polarization. He reflects on the differing approaches in particle physics as represented by East and West coast institutions. Grannis discusses his research work on the Cyclotron and Bevatron, and he describes his dissertation research on Regge poles and measuring the polarization of lanthanum nitrate crystals. He discusses his postdoctoral research at the Berkeley Radiation Lab, and he explains his decision to join the faculty at Stony Brook, which struck him as an exciting and up-and-coming place to pursue a career. Grannis describes the additional attraction of being in close proximity to Brookhaven Lab, and how he contributed to the overall broadening and improvement of the physics department. He explains his involvement in the ISABELLE project, and he describes the origins of the D0 endeavor and the feeling of excitement at Fermilab during that time. Grannis provides perspective on some of the inherent challenges in the SSC planning project and the existential challenges Fermilab faced as a result of focusing so exclusively on the Tevatron project. He describes the current state of high-energy physics and Europe’s leadership in this field, and some of the hypothetical advancements that could be made with the ILC endeavor. At the end of the interview, Grannis discusses his current work as co-spokesman of D0, his ongoing planning work on the ILC, he muses about what science projects he would fund if he had discretion on where to deploy 10 billion dollars, and he shares what he sees as some of the most exciting short and long term prospects in the field.