In this interview, Elizabeth Simmons discusses: role as Executive Vice Chancellor (EVC) at UC San Diego; impact of COVID-19; current developments in the field that she finds exciting; family background and childhood; experiences as a woman in physics; M.Phil at Cambridge in Volker Heine’s group working on condensed matter theory; study of condensed matter theory at Harvard; Howard Georgi; work on models exploring electroweak symmetry breaking and quark masses; opinions on why SSC died and the impact on the field; collaboration with Cynthia Brossman on the Pathways K12 outreach project supporting girls’ involvement in STEM; research on the top quark; interest in supersymmetry and physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) using a Higgless model; papers with husband Sekhar Chivukula and others exploring the idea of a five-dimensional spacetime; leading Lyman Briggs College; MOOSE model; reaction to the discovery of the Higgs boson; post-Higgs work distinguishing which models can and can’t be consistent with the data; consulting work for the American Physical Society (APS) and the wider academic and scientific community on matters of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI); advocacy on behalf of the LGBTQ community; advisory work for the Center for High Energy Physics in China; collaborations at the Aspen Center for Physics to support EDI in the field; role creating career development workshops for women at the International Center for Theoretical Physics; work increasing EDI in curricula and faculty hiring; building cross-field collaboration at UCSD; collaboration with other EVCs in the UC system; current physics work on model building and how to get the most out of available data; and current work on graviton-graviton scattering. Toward the end of the interview, Simmons reflects on intersectionality and the value of diversity in science and discovery.
Dr. Charles Kennel, director emeritus of Scripps Institution of Oceanography and (currently) Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Science and Policy, University of Cambridge, is interviewed at his home in La Jolla, California, by Ryan Hearty, oral history fellow at the American Institute of Physics. Kennel describes several milestones in his diverse career spanning industry, academia and government service. Subjects include: Kennel’s childhood in Boston; undergraduate studies at Harvard University; doctoral research at Princeton University, including work experience at Avco-Everett Research Laboratory; postdoc work at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy; his academic career as professor and later chair of physics, as well as vice chancellor, at UCLA; his service as associate administrator at NASA; directing Scripps; and recent work in climate change policy.
The interview focuses on Abdus Salam as a politician of science. It tries to establish how much Salam transmitted to his collaborators about his political agenda. Salam's activism in pursuing the Nobel Prize; Feldman's view and collaboration with Matthews and Salam at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste and at Imperial College; significant works that came out of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics between 1964 and 1980.
Starts with a brief overview of early schooling and physics studies at Università di Pavia in the 1940s, and a two-year visit to University of Illinois to work with Frederick Seitz. Building up and organizing solid state physics studies at Gruppo nazionale di struttura dela Materia; collaboration with Italian industry (Olivetti, Segesto); research funding difficulties. Comments on involvement with the Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste (J. Ziman and N. Marsh); comments on solid state physics in other European countries. Chiarotti's organizational work in Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche and the European Physical Society is mentioned. Views on the popularization of science in the Italian scientific community.
