InterViews provides first-person accounts of the lives and work of National Academy of Sciences members. In these hour-long interviews, members talk about their research, why they became scientists, and other aspects of their research and careers.
Three interviews you might find interesting: Freeman Dyson Freeman Dyson began his career as a mathematician, but then turned to the exciting new developments in physics in the 1940s, particularly the theory of quantized fields. He wrote two papers on the foundations of quantum electrodynamics that have had a lasting influence on many branches of modern physics. He went on to work in condensed-matter physics, statistical mechanics, nuclear engineering, climate studies, astrophysics, and biology. Dyson was born in 1923 in Crawthorne, England. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Cambridge in 1945 and came to the United States in 1947 as a Commonwealth Fellow at Cornell University. He settled in the United States permanently in 1951, became a professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in 1953, and retired as professor emeritus in 1994. Beyond his professional work in physics, Dyson has a keen awareness of the human side of science and the human consequences of technology. His books for the general public include Disturbing the Universe, Weapons and Hope, Infinite in All Directions, Origins of Life and The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet.
Jared Diamond Jared Diamond is professor of physiology at the School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles. Diamond received his B.A. from Harvard College in 1958 and his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1961. He has several appointments at UCLA: professor of physiology at the medical school, professor of environmental health sciences at the School of Public Health, and professor of geography. Diamond is also a research associate in ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and a research associate in ornithology and mammalogy for the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History. Diamond is a contributing editor for Discover Magazine and director of the U.S. Division of the World Wildlife Fund. Diamond has led 19 expeditions to New Guinea and nearby islands. He is the author of eight books, two monographs and 577 articles. In 1992, Diamond received both Britain's Science Book Prize and the Los Angeles Times Science Book Prize for The Third Chimpanzee. For Guns, Germs, and Steel, he received Britain’s Science Book Prize in 1998, the Pulitzer Prize in 1998, the Phi Beta Kappa Science Book Prize in 1997, the California Book Awards Gold Medal in nonfiction in 1998, and the Lannan Literary Award for nonfiction in 1999.
Andrew Viterbi Born in Bergamo, Italy, Andrew Viterbi came to the United States when he was just a boy. His family eventually settled in Boston, and he attended public schools there, including the renowned Boston Latin School. Developing an interest in engineering as a preteen, he studied electronics and electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After graduation, he moved to California, where he earned a Ph.D. in digital communications from the University of Southern California, taught communications theory at the University of California, Los Angeles, and consulted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the California Institute of Technology. In 1968 he cofounded Linkabit Corporation and in 1985 QUALCOMM Inc. He is also the president of the venture capital investment fund The Viterbi Group, LLC. A pioneer in the field of communications, Andrew Viterbi is the creator of the Viterbi algorithm, which is used by four international standards for digital cellular telephony. He is a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. In 2004, the University of Southern California’s School of Engineering was renamed the Viterbi School of Engineering in his honor.
National Academy of Sciences: InterViews |
