In these interviews, Joanna Behrman, Assistant Public Historian for AIP, interviews Steven Moszkowski, Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Los Angeles. He describes his family background and childhood in Germany. Moszkowski recounts how he and his family, particularly his grandparents, were friends of Albert Einstein. He recalls the rise of the Nazis and how he and his parents emigrated to the United States. He describes joining the Army after high school and being transferred to work at the Metallurgical Laboratory under Robert Sachs. He explains how he became interested in nuclear physics and earned his Ph.D. under Maria Goeppert-Mayer. Moszkowski describes working with Chien-Shiung Wu at Columbia on beta decay and coauthoring a book together. He recounts moving from Columbia to UCLA where he also consulted for the Rand Corporation and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He discusses the evolution of research on nuclear models including Goeppert-Mayer’s shell model and his own interest in the nuclear many-body problem. Moszkowski explains the origins of the division between nuclear theorists and particle theorists. He describes how he generalized Goeppert-Mayer’s delta interaction and named it the surface delta interaction which became a focus of research for many years. He then describes the social and personal upheavals he experienced during the 1960s He recounts the importance of travel and collaboration in his research, particularly his travel to Hungary, the European Center for Theoretical Studies in Nuclear Physics and Related Areas (ECT*) in Trento, and the University of Coimbra in Portugal. He recalls his interactions with many colleagues in physics including Judit Nemeth, Yoichiro Nambu, Murph Goldberger, and Murray Gell-Mann. Moszkowski describes his impressions on the status of women in physics and his biography of Goeppert-Mayer as part of a volume edited by Nina Byers and Gary Williams. Moszkowski concludes with his impressions of Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, Werner Heisenberg, Nambu, and Hans Bethe.
In this interview, Joanna Behrman, Assistant Public Historian for AIP, interviews Christopher Russell, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. Russell describes his childhood in Britain and Canada before attending the University of Toronto as an undergraduate. He describes his initial move to the University of California, Los Angeles, for his Ph.D. with Robert Holzer and then transitioning into more permanent positions there. Russell recounts his work studying geomagnetism and the solar wind on the OGO series, Apollo program, International Sun-Earth Explorer, and Pioneer Venus Spacecraft. Russell describes the changing scientific paradigm from an Earth-centric idea of geomagnetic activity to a solar wind centric theory. He recounts his work in the collaborations for the Galileo and Cassini missions with Margaret Kivelson and David Southwood. Russell then explains the motivation behind the NASA Discovery program and how he developed the Dawn mission. He reflects on the growth of UCLA as a locus for research in planetary and space sciences. At the end of the interview, he describes the wide range and impact of the collaborations he has been a part of.
The interviewee has not given permission for this interview to be shared at this time. Transcripts will be updated as they become available to the public. For any questions about this policy, please contact [email protected].
The interviewee has not given permission for this interview to be shared at this time. Transcripts will be updated as they become available to the public. For any questions about this policy, please contact [email protected].
The interviewee has not given permission for this interview to be shared at this time. Transcripts will be updated as they become available to the public. For any questions about this policy, please contact [email protected].
In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Thomas Mason, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at UCLA. Mason recounts his childhood in Frederick, MD, and he describes the influence of his father, who was a zoologist. Mason discusses his undergraduate education at the University of Maryland where he pursued a dual degree in physics and electrical engineering, and he describes the opportunity that led to his graduate work at Princeton. He explains his work at Exxon Research and Engineering Lab, where he worked with Dave Weitz, and he describes the growth of soft matter condensed physics. Mason discusses his dissertation in micro-rheology and some of the broader questions in Brownian systems when colloids are micro-dispersed. He describes his postdoctoral work in France with Jerome Bibette, where he focused on the science of emulsification, and he discusses his senior postdoctoral position at Johns Hopkins, where he worked with Scot Kuo who was concentrating on the rheology of concentrated DNA. Mason explains his decision to join Exxon as a principal investigator, where he researched asphaltenes, and he discusses some of the broader advances in soft matter physics fostered at the Exxon lab. He describes his motivations for returning to academia, and in particular his desire to teach, he explains the opportunity leading to his tenure at UCLA, and he describes his contributions to the NanoSystems Institute. Mason discusses his involvement in many of the clinical and therapeutic aspects of soft matter physics, and at the end of the interview, he offers insight on where his broad interests in platform technologies might be relevant as his field continues to grow.
Interview with William Gelbart, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA. The interview begins with Gelbart discussing his research pertaining to COVID-19 and creating a vaccine. Gelbart then recounts his childhood in New York and describes growing up with a mathematician father. He takes us through his undergraduate years at Harvard where he majored in chemistry and physics. Gelbart speaks about his grad school experience at the University of Chicago and the trends in chemical physics at the time. He describes working under the mentorship of Stuart Rice, Karl Freed, and Joshua Jortner. Gelbart then details the factors that led him to a postdoctoral fellowship in Paris, followed by a postdoctoral position at UC Berkeley, at which time he transitioned into physical chemistry. Gelbart also discusses his subsequent move to UCLA and his collaborations with Avi Ben-Shaul. He explains his shift into biology and virus research, and his recent work on RNA gene expression and cancer vaccine research.
Interview with Steven Kivelson, Prabhu Goel Family Professor of Physics at Stanford University. Kivelson recounts his childhood in Los Angeles as the son of academic scientists, and he describes his transition from career ambitions in the law toward physics. He discusses his undergraduate experience at Harvard, and he describes his lack of appreciation of the stature of many of the physics professors, such as his advisor Paul Martin, whom he knew first as a friend of his parents. Kivelson explains his decision to continue at Harvard for his graduate degree, and he discusses how he developed his interest in amorphous semiconductors under the guidance of Dan Gellat. He recounts his postdoctoral work at UC Santa Barbara, where he worked with Bob Schrieffer on the physics of conducting polymers. Kivelson discusses his first faculty position at Stony Brook, and he discusses the excellent group of graduate students he advised during his tenure there. He discusses some of the broader research questions in condensed matter of the time, including the significance of macroscopic quantum tunneling, invented by Tony Leggett. Kivelson explains his reasons for moving to UCLA, and he discusses Ray Orbach’s efforts to make recruitment a priority there. He discusses his long interest in fractionalization with regard to conducting polymers to be generalized to spin liquids, and his move to Stanford, which attracted him in part because of the condensed matter experimental group. At the end of the interview, Kivelson discusses his current research interests in exploring well-controlled solutions of paradigmatic models of strongly correlated electron systems, and he explains why the concept of a grand unified theory of physics is not a scientific but rather a religious proposition.
Interview with Robert Jennings, retired since 2018 from the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, where he was a research physicist. He recounts his childhood in Southern California and the formative influence of Sputnik on his physics education. Jennings discusses his undergraduate experience at Occidental and his master’s work at UCLA, and he describes his postgraduate work at the NASA Ames Research Center where he worked on optical detectors. He explains his decision to pursue a PhD at Dartmouth where he studied under John Merrill and worked on Tonks-Dattner resonances. Jennings describes the circumstances leading to his postdoctoral research in Brazil at the Institute of Atomic Energy, where he worked on medical radiation in the Division of Solid-State Physics. He discusses his subsequent research with John Cameron at the University of Wisconsin’s Medical Physics section to develop spectroscopy systems. Jennings explains that the expertise he developed in radiation and modeling in Wisconsin served as his entrée to the FDA ,which excited him as the place where the most impactful research was happening at the time. He surveys the major projects he was involved with over his career, including human visual signal detection, quality assessment of medical devices, improving mammography diagnostics, tomosynthesis, and CT scanners. At the end of the interview, Jennings surveys the fundamental developments that have advanced over the course of his forty-plus year career at FDA, his major contributions in tissue simulation science, and why he believes AI will become increasingly central to advances in medical imaging.
Interview with Eli Yablonovitch, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at UC Berkeley. He talks about the overlap of these fields with applied physics, and he recounts his family’s Jewish heritage in Europe and his origin as a Displaced Person born to refugee parents after World War II. Yablonovitch describes his childhood in Montreal, his early interests in science, and his undergraduate experience at McGill where he first became interested in transistors. He explains his decision to attend Harvard in Applied Physics for graduate school to and the intellectual influence of Mike Tinkham. Yablonovitch discusses his thesis research on semiconductor optics and four-wave mixing, and he describes the opportunities that led to his postdoctoral work at Bell Labs to work on laser-based communications systems. He discusses his return to Harvard as a faculty member and his subsequent solar research work at Exxon. Yablonovitch discusses his formative collaboration with Sajeev John and his move to UCLA, and he explains how the rise of the internet fostered his entrepreneurial instincts. He describes his work to improve cellphone antennae and his decision to transfer to Berkeley and the origins of Alta Devices. Yablonovitch describe his current interests in circuits and chips and he shares his view on China’s work in basic science. At the end of the interview, Yablonovitch reflects on outliving many tech companies, some of the intractable challenges of solar energy, and why Feynman’s lectures remain a guiding light for his own interests.
