Class
| • | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | [X] |
| | 381 | Name: | Samuel A. Mitchell | | | Year Elected: | 1923 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1875 | | | Death Date: | 2/22/60 | | | | |
| 382 | Name: | Howard H. Mitchell | | | Year Elected: | 1925 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1885 | | | Death Date: | 3/13/43 | | | | |
| 383 | Name: | Dr. Mario J. Molina | | | Institution: | University of California, San Diego | | | Year Elected: | 2007 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1943 | | | Death Date: | October 7, 2020 | | | | | | |
Mario Molina Autobiography From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1995, Editor Tore Frängsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1996. Updated in 2005. I was born in Mexico City on March 19, 1943; my parents were Roberto Molina Pasquel and Leonor Henríquez de Molina. My father was a lawyer; he had a private practice, but he also taught at the National University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) ). In his later years, after I had left Mexico, he served as Mexican Ambassador to Ethiopia, Australia and the Philippines. I attended elementary school and high school in Mexico City. I was already fascinated by science before entering high school; I still remember my excitement when I first glanced at paramecia and amoebae through a rather primitive toy microscope. I then converted a bathroom, seldom used by the family, into a laboratory and spent hours playing with chemistry sets. With the help of an aunt, Esther Molina, who was a chemist, I continued with more challenging experiments along the lines of those carried out by freshman chemistry students in college. Keeping with our family tradition of sending their children abroad for a couple of years, and aware of my interest in chemistry, I was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland when I was 11 years old, on the assumption that German was an important language for a prospective chemist to learn. I remember I was thrilled to go to Europe, but then I was disappointed in that my European schoolmates had no more interest in science than my Mexican friends. I had already decided at that time to become a research chemist; earlier, I had seriously contemplated the possibility of pursuing a career in music - I used to play the violin in those days. In 1960, I enrolled in the chemical engineering program at UNAM, as this was then the closest way to become a physical chemist, taking math-oriented courses not available to chemistry majors. After finishing my undergraduate studies in Mexico, I decided to obtain a Ph.D. degree in physical chemistry. This was not an easy task; although my training in chemical engineering was good, it was weak in mathematics, physics, as well as in various areas of basic physical chemistry - subjects such as quantum mechanics were totally alien to me in those days. At first I went to Germany and enrolled at the University of Freiburg. After spending nearly two years doing research in kinetics of polymerizations, I realized that I wanted to have time to study various basic subjects in order to broaden my background and to explore other research areas. Thus, I decided to seek admission to a graduate program in the United States. While pondering my future plans, I spent several months in Paris, where I was able to study mathematics on my own and I also had a wonderful time discussing all sorts of topics, ranging from politics, philosophy, to the arts, etc., with many good friends. Subsequently, I returned to Mexico as an Assistant Professor at the UNAM and I set up the first graduate program in chemical engineering. Finally, in 1968 I left for the University of California at Berkeley to pursue my graduate studies in physical chemistry. During my first year at Berkeley, I took courses in physics and mathematics, in addition to the required courses in physical chemistry. I then joined the research group of Professor George C. Pimentel, with the goal of studying molecular dynamics using chemical lasers, which were discovered in his group a few years earlier. George Pimentel was also a pioneer in the development of matrix isolation techniques, which is widely used in the study of the molecular structure and bonding of transient species. He was an excellent teacher and a wonderful mentor; his warmth, enthusiasm, and encouragement provided me with inspiration to pursue important scientific questions. My graduate work involved the investigation of the distribution of internal energy in the products of chemical and photochemical reactions; chemical lasers were well suited as tools for such studies. At the beginning I had little experience with the experimental techniques required for my research, such as handling vacuum lines, infrared optics, electronic instrumentation, etc. I learned much of this from my colleague and friend Francisco Tablas, who was a postdoctoral fellow at that time. Eventually I became confident enough to generate original results on my own: my earliest achievement consisted of explaining some features in the laser signals - that at first sight appeared to be noise - as "relaxation oscillations," predictable from the fundamental equations of laser emission. My years at Berkeley have been some of the best of my life. I arrived there just after the era of the free-speech movement. I had the opportunity to explore many areas and to engage in exciting scientific research in an intellectually stimulating environment. It was also during this time that I had my first experience dealing with the impact of science and technology on society. I remember that I was dismayed by the fact that high-power chemical lasers were being developed elsewhere as weapons; I wanted to be involved with research that was useful to society, but not for potentially harmful purposes. After completing my Ph.D. degree in 1972, I stayed for another year at Berkeley to continue research on chemical dynamics. Then, in the fall of 1973, I joined the group of Professor F. Sherwood (Sherry) Rowland as a postdoctoral fellow, moving to Irvine, California. Sherry had pioneered research on "hot atom" chemistry, investigating chemical properties of atoms with excess translational energy and produced by radioactive processes. Sherry offered me a list of research options: the one project that intrigued me the most consisted of finding out the environmental fate of certain very inert industrial chemicals - the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) - which had been accumulating in the atmosphere and which at that time were thought to have no significant effects on the environment. This project offered me the opportunity to learn a new field --atmospheric chemistry-- about which I knew very little; trying to solve a challenging problem appeared to be an excellent way to plunge into a new research area. The CFCs are compounds similar to others that Sherry and I had investigated from the point of view of molecular dynamics; we were familiar with their chemical properties, but not with their atmospheric chemistry. Three months after I arrived at Irvine, Sherry and I developed the "CFC-ozone depletion theory." At first the research did not seem to be particularly interesting - I carried out a systematic search for processes that might destroy the CFCs in the lower atmosphere, but nothing appeared to affect them. We knew, however, that they would eventually drift to sufficiently high altitudes to be destroyed by solar radiation. The question was not only what destroys them, but more importantly, what the consequences are. We realized that the chlorine atoms produced by the decomposition of the CFCs would catalytically destroy ozone. We became fully aware of the seriousness of the problem when we compared the industrial amounts of CFCs to the amounts of nitrogen oxides which control ozone levels; the role of these catalysts of natural origin had been established a few years earlier by Paul Crutzen. We were alarmed at the possibility that the continued release of CFCs into the atmosphere would cause a significant depletion of the Earth's stratospheric ozone layer. Sherry and I decided to exchange information with the atmospheric sciences community: we went to Berkeley to confer with Professor Harold Johnston, whose work on the impact of the release of nitrogen oxides from the proposed supersonic transport (SST) aircraft on the stratospheric ozone layer was well known to us. Johnston informed us that months earlier Ralph Cicerone and Richard Stolarski had arrived at similar conclusions concerning the catalytic properties of chlorine atoms in the stratosphere, in connection with the release of hydrogen chloride either from volcanic eruptions or from the ammonium perchlorate fuel planned for the space shuttle. We published our findings in Nature, in a paper which appeared in the June 28, 1974 issue. The years following the publication of our paper were hectic, as we had decided to communicate the CFC - ozone issue not only to other scientists, but also to policy makers and to the news media; we realized this was the only way to insure that society would take some measures to alleviate the problem. To me, Sherry Rowland has always been a wonderful mentor and colleague. I cherish my years of association with him and my friendship with him and his wife, Joan. While he was on sabbatical leave in Vienna during the first six months of 1974, we communicated via mail and telephone. There were many exchanges of mail during this short period of time, which illustrated the frantic pace of our research at that time while we continued to refine our ozone depletion theory. Soon after, Sherry and I published several more articles on the CFC-ozone issue; we presented our results at scientific meetings and we also testified at legislative hearings on potential controls on CFCs emissions. In 1975, I was appointed as a member of the faculty at the University of California, Irvine. Although I continued to collaborate with Sherry, as an assistant professor I had to prove that I was capable of conducting original research on my own. I thus set up an independent program to investigate chemical and spectroscopic properties of compounds of atmospheric importance, focusing on those that are unstable and difficult to handle in the laboratory, such as hypochlorous acid, chlorine nitrite, chlorine nitrate, peroxynitric acid, etc. Although my years at Irvine were very productive, I missed not doing experiments myself because of the many responsibilities associated with a faculty position: teaching courses, supervising graduate students, meetings, etc. After spending seven years at Irvine as Assistant and then Associate Professor, I decided to move to a non-academic position. I joined the Molecular Physics and Chemistry Section at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1982. I had a smaller group - only a few postdoctoral fellows - but I also had the luxury of conducting experiments with my own hands, which I enjoyed very much. Indeed, I spent many hours in the laboratory in those years, conducting measurements and developing techniques for the study of newly emerging problems. Around 1985, after becoming aware of the discovery by Joseph Farman and his co-workers of the seasonal depletion of ozone over Antarctica, my research group at JPL investigated the peculiar chemistry which is promoted by polar stratospheric clouds, some of which consist of ice crystals. We were able to show that chlorine-activation reactions take place very efficiently in the presence of ice under polar stratospheric conditions; thus, we provided a laboratory simulation of the chemical effects of clouds over the Antarctic. Also, in order to understand the rapid catalytic gas phase reactions that were taking place over the South Pole, experiments were carried out in my group with chlorine peroxide, a new compound which had not been reported previously in the literature and which turned out to be important in providing the explanation for the rapid loss of ozone in the polar stratosphere. In 1989 I returned to academic life, moving to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I have continued with research on global atmospheric chemistry issues. Although I no longer spend much time in the laboratory, I very much enjoy working with my graduate and postdoctoral students, who provide me with invaluable intellectual stimulus. I have also benefited from teaching; as I try to explain my views to students with critical and open minds, I find myself continually being challenged to go back and rethink ideas. I now see teaching and research as complementary, mutually reinforcing activities. When I first chose the project to investigate the fate of chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere, it was simply out of scientific curiosity. I did not consider at that time the environmental consequences of what Sherry and I had set out to study. I am heartened and humbled that I was able to do something that not only contributed to our understanding of atmospheric chemistry, but also had a profound impact on the global environment. One of the very rewarding aspects of my work has been the interaction with a superb group of colleagues and friends in the atmospheric sciences community. I truly value these friendships, many of which go back 20 years or more, and which I expect to continue for many more years to come. I feel that this Nobel Prize represents recognition for the excellent work that has been done by my colleagues and friends in the atmospheric chemistry community on the stratospheric ozone depletion issue.
Mario Molina was awarded the 2013 Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. | |
| 384 | Name: | Dr. Ernest J. Moniz | | | Institution: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Energy Futures Initiative;; Nuclear Threat Initiative | | | Year Elected: | 2020 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1944 | | | | | | |
Ernest J. Moniz served as the thirteenth United States Secretary of Energy from 2013 to January 2017. As Secretary, he advanced energy technology innovation, nuclear security and strategic stability, cutting-edge capabilities for the American scientific research community, and environmental stewardship. He strengthened the Department of Energy (DOE) strategic partnership with its seventeen national laboratories and with the Department of Defense and the broader national security establishment. Specific accomplishments included producing analytically-based energy policy proposals that attracted bipartisan support and implementing legislation, leading an international initiative that placed energy science and technology innovation at the center of the global response to climate change, and negotiating alongside the Secretary of State the historic Iran nuclear agreement. He reorganized a number of DOE program elements, elevated sound project and risk management, and strengthened enterprise-wide management to improve mission outcomes.
Dr. Moniz served on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty from 1973 until becoming Secretary of Energy in 2013 and is now the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems emeritus and Special Advisor to the MIT President. He is co-chairman of the Board of Directors and CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a non-profit organization that has advanced innovative solutions for securing nuclear materials, building international cooperation for nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, preventing the spread of disease and reducing radiological threats. He is the inaugural Distinguished Fellow of the Emerson Collective and CEO of the non-profit Energy Futures Initiative.
Dr. Moniz previously served in government as DOE Under Secretary from 1997 until January 2001 with science, energy, and nuclear security responsibilities and from 1995 to 1997 as Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy with responsibility for the physical, life, and social sciences. He was a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and of the Defense Threat Reduction Advisory Committee from 2009 to 2013. He also served on the Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future that provided advice to the President and the Secretary of Energy, particularly on nuclear waste management.
At MIT, Dr. Moniz was the Founding Director of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and Director of the Laboratory for Energy and the Environment. MITEI grew to involve over a quarter of the faculty across the entire Institute, launched new educational programs for energy, and established novel models for industry-faculty engagement that simultaneously provided individualized company research portfolios with a commons approach that lifted the entire energy enterprise. Dr. Moniz is a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center.
Dr. Moniz was also Head of the MIT Department of Physics during 1991-1995 and 1997 and Director of the Bates Linear Accelerator Center from 1983-1991. His physics research centered on developing the theoretical framework for understanding intermediate energy electron and meson interactions with atomic nuclei. Since 2001, his primary research focus has been energy technology and policy, including a leadership role in MIT multidisciplinary technology and policy studies addressing pathways to a low-carbon world (Future of Nuclear Power, of Coal, of Natural Gas, of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle and of Solar Energy). These studies had significant impact on energy policy and programs.
Dr. Moniz received a Bachelor of Science degree summa cum laude in physics from Boston College, a doctorate in theoretical physics from Stanford University, and ten honorary doctorates1, including three from European universities. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the International Advisory Board of the Atlantic Council and received the 1998 Seymour Cray HPCC Industry Recognition Award for vision and leadership in advancing scientific simulation. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Public Service Medals of the Department of Defense and of the Navy. He also was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Makarios III (Cyprus), the Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Henry the Navigator (Portugal), and the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun (Japan). Other awards include the Charles Percy Award of the Alliance to Save Energy, the Right Stuff Award of the Blue-Green Alliance Foundation, the Franklin D. Roosevelt Distinguished Public Service Award, and the Neustadt Award of the Harvard Kennedy School for creating exceptional solutions to significant problems in public policy. He is a Fellow of the American Physics Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Humboldt Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Moniz has served on the Board of Directors of both publicly traded and private companies in the energy and security sectors. He also served on the Boards of several non-profit energy industry organizations and as a high-level advisor to several energy-related companies and investment firms.
Dr. Moniz is a resident of Brookline Massachusetts with his wife of more than four decades, Naomi, daughter Katya, and grandchildren Alex and Eve. He is a very modestly accomplished but very enthusiastic practitioner of fly-fishing.
1. Athens University (Greece), University of Erlangen-Nurenberg (Germany), Michigan State University, Universidad Pontifical de Comillas (Spain), University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Iowa State University, Boston University, Boston College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Georgetown University. | |
| 385 | Name: | Dr. Deane Montgomery | | | Institution: | Institute for Advanced Study | | | Year Elected: | 1958 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 104. Mathematics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1909 | | | Death Date: | 3/15/92 | | | | |
| 386 | Name: | Dr. James M. Moran | | | Institution: | Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 2020 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 101. Astronomy | | | Residency: | resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1943 | | | | | | |
James Moran is currently Senior Scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Donald H. Menzel Emeritus Professor of Astrophysics at Harvard University. He earned his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968. He has spent most of his career at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and Harvard University.
James Moran has led a decades long program which has directly established the geometric scale of the universe and provided the first direct evidence for the existence of supermassive black holes. These exquisite observations began with Moran’s 1967 pioneering work in the development of Very Long Baseline spectral line interferometry and culminated with his observations of cosmic H2O maser sources to obtain the direct geometric distance to a galaxy, independent of traditional multiple step extragalactic distance ladder and its uncertain metallicity corrections. The extragalactic distance scale is a key ingredient in establishing the equation state of dark matter as well as being an essential prerequisite for the determination of the age, energy density, synthesis of the light elements, geometry, and the evolution of the universe. The current “tension” between the maser/Cepheid/supernova and Planck values of the Hubble constant, 73.24p/m1.74 and 67.8p/m0.9 respectively, depends fundamentally on these direct geometric measurements.
James Moran was awarded the Rumford Prize of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1971, the Newton Lacy Pierce Prize of the American Astronomical Society in 1978, and the Grote Reber Gold Medal in 2013. He is a member of the International Astronomical Union (president, Division X and Commission 40, 1997-2000), the National Academy of Sciences (1998), and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (2010). James Moran was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2020. | |
| 387 | Name: | Dr. Cathleen S. Morawetz | | | Institution: | New York University & New York Mayor's Commission on Science & Technology | | | Year Elected: | 1996 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 104. Mathematics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1923 | | | Death Date: | August 8, 2017 | | | | | | |
Mathematician Cathleen Synge Morawetz was born in Toronto, Canada in 1923. She graduated from the University of Toronto in 1945 and received her master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She then earned her Ph.D. at New York University with a thesis on the stability of a spherical implosion. She became an assistant professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU in 1957 and remained at NYU throughout her career, serving as the Institute's director from 1984-88. Dr. Morawetz is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a former president of the American Mathematical Society and the recipient of the 1998 National Medal of Science. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1996. Her research focused mainly on the study of the partial differential equations governing fluid flow, particularly those of mixed type occurring in transonic flow. She died August 8, 2017 at the age of 94 at home in Manhattan. | |
| 388 | Name: | Dr. Philip Morrison | | | Institution: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | | | Year Elected: | 1974 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 101. Astronomy | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1915 | | | Death Date: | April 22, 2005 | | | | |
| 389 | Name: | Marston Morse | | | Year Elected: | 1936 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1892 | | | Death Date: | 6/22/77 | | | | |
| 390 | Name: | Dr. Ellen Mosley-Thompson | | | Institution: | Ohio State University | | | Year Elected: | 2009 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 105. Physical Earth Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1948 | | | | | | |
Ellen Mosley-Thompson is a Distinguished University Professor, Senior Research Scientist in the Byrd Polar Research Center at the Ohio State University. She was Director of the Byrd Polar Research Center from 2009-2016. Dr. Mosley-Thompson holds a B.S. degree in physics and a Master’s and Ph.D. in climatology and atmospheric sciences. She uses the chemical and physical properties preserved in ice cores collected from the polar ice sheets and high mountain glaciers to reconstruct the Earth’s complex climate history. These records indicate that the Earth’s climate has moved outside the range of natural variability experienced over at least the last 2000 years. Dr. Mosley-Thompson has led a total fourteen expeditions to drill ice cores at remote locations in Antarctica and Greenland. She established Antarctica’s most extensive and longest running snow accumulation network at South Pole Station. In addition to her election as a member of the American Philosophical Society (2009) Dr. Mosley-Thompson is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (2009). She is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has received the Dan David Prize (2008), the Roy Chapman Andrews Society 2007 Distinguished Explorer Award, The Common Wealth Award for Science and Invention (2002), and the Franklin Institute's Franklin Medal (2012).
Weblink 1: http://www.geography.osu.edu/faculty/emt/
Weblink 2: http://bprc.osu.edu/Icecore/GroupP.html#ellenmosleythompson | |
| 391 | Name: | Dr. Frederick Mosteller | | | Institution: | Harvard University & American Academy of Arts & Sciences | | | Year Elected: | 1961 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 104. Mathematics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1916 | | | Death Date: | July 23, 2006 | | | | |
| 392 | Name: | Dr. Ben R. Mottelson | | | Institution: | The Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen | | | Year Elected: | 2011 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1926 | | | Death Date: | May 13, 2022 | | | | | | |
Ben Mottelson is one of the giants of theoretical nuclear physics. With Aage Bohr, he discovered the connection between collective and single particle motion in atomic nuclei, thus establishing the modern framework for understanding the rich experimental behavior of nuclei. For this discovery, he, Bohr, and Rainwater received the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physics. The two volume study, Nuclear Structure, is the standard in the field. With Pines and Bohr, he pioneered the application of BCS theory of superconductivity to nuclei. He has been a major international figure, a founder and first director of the European Center for Nuclear Theory, and proponent of international cooperation - recognized by election to many nations’ scientific academies. He remains quite scientifically active, focusing on two new areas: man-made finite quantal systems (e.g., metallic clusters, quantum dots, and ultracold atomic clouds), which, as he has shown, can be fruitfully viewed as "artificial" nuclei; and reinterpretation of the foundations of quantum mechanics, where the central issue he grapples with is the role of fortuitousness in the theory. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1950 and was awarded the John Wetherill Medal in 1974. He is a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters (1958 - foreign, 1974 - (Danish), the National Academy of Sciences (1973), and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1971). He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2011. | |
| 393 | Name: | Forest R. Moulton | | | Year Elected: | 1916 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1872 | | | | |
| 394 | Name: | Dr. Robert S. Mulliken | | | Year Elected: | 1940 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1896 | | | Death Date: | 10/31/86 | | | | |
| 395 | Name: | Dr. David Mumford | | | Institution: | Brown University | | | Year Elected: | 1997 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 104. Mathematics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1937 | | | | | | |
David Mumford is a mathematician known both for his distinguished work in algebraic geometry and for his research into vision and pattern theory. Currently a professor emeritus in the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University, he previously had a long academic career at Harvard University, where he became a full professor of mathematics at Harvard University at the age of 30. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1961. Dr. Mumford's work in geometry always combined the traditional geometric insights with the latest algebraic techniques. He published on moduli spaces, with a theory summed up in his book Geometric Invariant Theory, on the equations defining an abelian variety, and on algebraic surfaces. He essentially founded the subject of the global moduli of algebraic curves, and in 1974, he was awarded the highest distinction in mathematics, the Fields Medal. During the 1980s Dr. Mumford left algebraic geometry in order to study brain structure. He was a MacArthur Fellow from 1987-92, won the Shaw Prize in 2006, and was awarded the 2010 National Medal of Science. His current area of work is pattern theory. | |
| 396 | Name: | Dr. Walter H. Munk | | | Institution: | Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego | | | Year Elected: | 1965 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 105. Physical Earth Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1917 | | | Death Date: | February 8, 2019 | | | | | | |
Walter H. Munk was a brilliant scholar and scientist who was considered one of the greatest oceanographers of his time. His principal interests included global acoustics, greenhouse warming, tides and the air-sea boundary. Dr. Munk received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the California Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. for work at the Scripps Institution, which he has been affiliated with throughout his career. During World War II, Dr. Munk and Harald Sverdrup, then the director of Scripps, developed a system for forecasting breakers and surf on beaches, a technique of crucial importance in military amphibious landings. During the 1946 testing of nuclear weapons at Bikini Atoll in the southern Pacific Ocean, Dr. Munk participated in analysis of the currents and diffusion in the lagoon and the water exchange with the open seas. In 1963, he led a study of attenuation in ocean swells generated in Antarctica, measuring fluctuations with pressure sensing devices lowered to the ocean floor. Measurements also were made at six Pacific Ocean locations and from FLIP, the Floating Instrument Platform, developed at Scripps. In 1969 he began measuring tides in the deep sea, using highly sophisticated pressure-sensing instruments that were dropped to the ocean floor and retrieved by acoustic release. Dr. Munk also played a leading role in developing new methods for tracking long-term changes in climate associated with global warming as part of the Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate (ATOC) project. The idea behind ATOC is to send sound signals from underwater speakers and track how long it takes them to reach receivers moored to the floor of the Pacific thousands of miles away. Because sound travels faster in warmer water than cooler water, a long-term series of tests that recorded increasingly faster travel times indicates that the ocean is warming. Dr. Munk received numerous honors for his work, including membership in the National Academy of Sciences (1956) and the Royal Society of London (1976). He was a Guggenheim Fellow three times and was awarded the Arthur L. Day Medal, the Sverdrup Gold Medal and the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society of London, among other honors. In 1999 he received the Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences for his fundamental contributions to the field of oceanography and in 2010 he was awarded the Crafoord prize. At the end of his career he was Research Professor of Geophysics, Emeritus at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Walter H. Munk died on February 8, 2019 in the La Jolla section of San Diego at the age of 101. | |
| 397 | Name: | Francis D. Murnaghan | | | Year Elected: | 1942 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1893 | | | Death Date: | 3/24/76 | | | | |
| 398 | Name: | Dr. Margaret Murnane | | | Institution: | University of Colorado at Boulder | | | Year Elected: | 2015 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1959 | | | | | | |
Margaret Murnane is a Fellow of JILA and a Distinguished Professor in Physics at the University of Colorado. She runs a joint, multi-disciplinary, research group with her husband, Prof. Henry Kapteyn. She received her B.S and M.S. degrees from University College Cork, Ireland, and her Ph.D. degree from UC Berkeley. Prof. Murnane with her students and collaborators uses coherent beams of laser and x-ray light to capture the fastest dynamics in molecules and materials at the nanoscale. Margaret is a Fellow of the Optical Society of America, the American Physical Society, and the AAAS. She was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2004, and chaired the President’s Committee for the National Medal of Science for three years. She was awarded a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship in 2000. She shared the 2009 Ahmed Zewail Award of the American Chemical Society, the 2010 Schawlow Prize of the American Physical Society, and the 2010 R.W. Wood Prize of the Optical Society of America with her husband Henry Kapteyn. She received the 2021 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute. Margaret is very interested in increasing diversity in science and engineering. | |
| 399 | Name: | Dr. Sidney Nagel | | | Institution: | University of Chicago | | | Year Elected: | 2020 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1948 | | | | | | |
Sidney R. Nagel has worked for more than 40 years in the field of condensed matter physics. He joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1976 after having received his B.A. (Columbia University), M.A. and Ph.D. (Princeton University) and postdoctoral training (Brown University). He is the Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Physics, James Franck Institute, Enrico Fermi Institute, at the University of Chicago
His broad research goals have been to understand the physics of disordered systems that are far from equilibrium. This has led him in a variety of unconventional directions, such as the science of drops, granular materials, and jamming. His research group pursues studies that delve into the physics of why drops splash and how materials can remember the way they have been trained. Some of the photographs that were taken as part of his research projects are currently in the collection at the Smart Museum on the University of Chicago Campus and at the National Academy of Sciences.
Nagel received the University of Chicago’s Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize from the American Physical Society and the Klopsteg Memorial Lecture Award from the American Association of Physics Teachers. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2020. | |
| 400 | Name: | Dr. John F. Nash | | | Institution: | Princeton University | | | Year Elected: | 2006 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 104. Mathematics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1928 | | | Death Date: | May 23, 2015 | | | | | | |
John Nash introduced what is now called "Nash equilibrium" in non-cooperative games and proved that such an equilibrium always exists. This work is foundational for Game Theory and led to his Nobel Prize in Economics. No less impressive is his work in pure mathematics, where his very deep and difficult theorems on embedding of manifolds initiated a whole new field of research. Tragically disabled by schizophrenia for over 30 years, he provided inspiration for many fellow sufferers by completely recovering, as told in the book and motion picture A Beautiful Mind. He then resumed his research in mathematics, having served as a researcher at Princeton University from 1994 to his death in 2015. In addition to the Nobel Prize, among Dr. Nash's many honors are the John Von Neumann Theory Prize of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (1978), the American Mathematical Society's Steele Prize (1999), and Norway's Abel Prize (2015). A graduate of Princeton University (Ph.D., 1950), he is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1995) and the National Academy of Sciences (1996). He died May 23, 2015, at the age of 86 in New Jersey. | |
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