Class
| • | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | [X] |
| | 41 | Name: | Jesse W. Beams | | | Year Elected: | 1939 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1898 | | | Death Date: | 7/23/77 | | | | |
| 42 | Name: | Eric T. Bell | | | Year Elected: | 1937 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1883 | | | Death Date: | 12/20/60 | | | | |
| 43 | Name: | Dr. Eshel Ben-Jacob | | | Institution: | Tel Aviv University; Rice University | | | Year Elected: | 2014 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1952 | | | Death Date: | June 5, 2015 | | | | | | |
Eshel Ben-Jacob was a professor of Physics and Astronomy, Maguy-Glass Prof. in Physics of Complex Systems and Member of the Sagol School of Neuroscience at Tel Aviv University, Israel. He was also an Adjunct Prof. of Biosciences and Senior Investigator at the Center of Theoretical Biological Physics (CTBP) at Rice University. Prof. Ben-Jacob finished his PhD in Physics (1982) at Tel Aviv University, during which he investigated the nonlinear dynamics and noise effects in networks of superconductors. He spent three years (1981-1984) as a post doctoral fellow at the Institute for Theoretical Physics (ITP; today KITP) at the University of California Santa Barbara and made his first groundbreaking work during that time. He and his collaborators solved the long standing "snowflake" problem, formulated by Kepler back in 1610, and lay the foundations of self-organization and pattern formation in open systems far from equilibrium - a field he pioneered and in which he made several breakthroughs (e.g., comprehending the singular interplay between the micro and macro level dynamics, formulating new self-consistent selection principles, founding a new theory of morphology selection). At the same time, Ben-Jacob suggested and showed, theoretically and experimentally, that Coulomb effect can be utilized to control single electron quantum tunneling in sub-micron systems. This led him to the invention (1988) of a transistor operating by single electron tunneling. He was awarded the Landau Prize for research in 1986. Ben-Jacob continued to study quantum effects in small systems, predicting (in the 90s) that flux solitons can behave as quantum relativistic particles.
Enthralled by the even greater challenge posed by self-organization in living systems, Ben-Jacob embarked on a new direction of applying physics principles and investigation methods to biology. His first and ongoing effort was bacterial colony development, believing that the foundations of cognition are rooted in these most fundamental life forms - in their abilities to assess the environment, process the information they sense, and adapt accordingly. Among his achievements in the last two decades in physical microbiology were revealing the principles of self organization in bacterial colonies and of collective decision making by social bacteria.
While continuing to work on bacteria, Ben-Jacob turned to apply what he learned there to studies of neural network organization and task performance. Here, his most noticeable accomplishment was the first imprinting of multiple memories in live neuronal networks outside the brain utilizing his new "functional holography" analysis of the network activity. Being recognized as a revolutionary step in Networks Neuroscience, this endeavor was selected by Scientific American as one of the 50 most important achievements in all fields of science and technology in 2007. Ben-Jacob then utilized the "functional holography" method for analyzing recorded human brain activity with application to epilepsy. He applied his methods in clinical studies of brain repair from stroke and traumatic brain injuries by hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
Ben-Jacob's last endeavor was applying what he learned from the microbial world in cancer research. Here he promoted the idea that cancer cells, like bacteria, use advanced communication and cooperation through which they migrate, colonize new organs, develop drug resistance, deceive the immune system and enslave stromal cells. In line of this paradigm, he worked on revealing the operational principles underlying these lethal traits and developing a new theoretical framework to studying new classes of therapeutic strategies intended to defeat cancer by means of "cyberwar", i.e. targeting its communication, cooperation and control.
Prof. Ben-Jacob served as vice president (1998-2001) and President (2001-2004) of the Israel Physical Society. He was granted the award of Cavaliere dell'Ordine della Stella della solidarietà Italiana for promotion of science and science culture (2008). He was awarded the Weizmann prize in Physical Sciences in 2013 for "innovative application of physical methods to the study of biological communities such as bacteria colonies, neural networks, and tumors" and inducted an International member of the American Philosophical Society in mathematical and physical sciences in 2014. He died on June 5, 2015, in Tel Aviv, Israel, at the age of 63. | |
| 44 | Name: | Dr. Manson Benedict | | | Institution: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | | | Year Elected: | 1977 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 103. Engineering | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1907 | | | Death Date: | September 18, 2006 | | | | |
| 45 | Name: | Dr. Stephen J. Benkovic | | | Institution: | Pennsylvania State University | | | Year Elected: | 2002 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1938 | | | | | | |
Stephen J. Benkovic received an A.B. in English literature and a B.S. in chemistry from Lehigh University in 1960 and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry with a minor in physical chemistry and biochemistry from Cornell University in 1963. He joined the faculty of Pennsylvania State University in 1965, has been Evan Pugh Professor since 1977 and has held the Eberly Chair in Chemistry since 1986. Dr. Benkovic's early immersion in the classics and in English literature has facilitated his coherent presentation of complicated processes at the chemistry/biology interface. In the laboratory, he uses a dazzling combination of methodologies to define the pathways by which separate and combined protein systems carry out the chemical conversions crucial to life processes, including DNA polymerization and replication. His studies of enzyme mechanisms led to inhibitor design and chemotherapeutic agents; those on catalytic antibodies clarify the connection between chemistry and immunology. His love of literature has been transmuted to service on editorial boards of sixteen scientific journals. He was the recipient of the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry from Pennsylvania State University in 1977, the Gowland Hopkins Award in 1986, the Repligen Award in 1989, the Alfred R. Bader Award of the American Chemical Society in 1995, the Christian B. Anfinsin Award in 2000, the National Medal of Science in 2010, and the NAS Award in Chemical Sciences in 2011. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Chemical Society, and the Royal Society. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2002. | |
| 46 | Name: | Lloyd Viel Berkner | | | Year Elected: | 1956 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1905 | | | Death Date: | 6/4/67 | | | | |
| 47 | Name: | Sir Tim Berners-Lee | | | Institution: | World Wide Web Consortium; Massachusetts Institute of Technology | | | Year Elected: | 2004 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 107 | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1955 | | | | | | |
The inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee received his B.A. from the Queen's College, Oxford University, in 1976 and was named "Young Inventor of the Year" by the Kilby Foundation in 1995. In 2007 he was awarded the Charles Stark Draper Prize ("engineering's Nobel Prize") and the Order of Merit, one of the United Kingdom's most prestigious honors. He won both the Turing Award and the Commonwealth Award in 2017. He was elected to membership in the National Academy of Sciences in 2009. Tim Berners-Lee designed the World Wide Web to fill a particular need at the CERN laboratory, where he worked from 1984-94. Some of the high energy experiments at CERN are very large, often with more than 1,000 physicists from many countries participating. In March 1989, he completed a project proposal for a system to communicate information among researchers in the CERN High Energy Physics department, which was intended to help those having problems sharing information across a wide range of different networks, computers, and countries. The project had two main goals. The first was Open Design: that the hypertext system have an open architecture and be able to run on any computer being used at CERN, including Unix, VMS, Macintosh, and Windows. The second goal was that the system be distributed over a communications network. In the fall of 1990, Berners-Lee took about a month to develop the first web browser on a NeXT computer, including an integrated editor that could create hypertext documents. He deployed the program on his and a colleague's computers, and they were both communicating with the world's first web server at info.cern.ch on December 25, 1990. Luckily, CERN had been connected to the ARPANET through the EUnet in 1990. In August 1991, he posted a notice on the alt.hypertext newsgroup about where to download their web server and line mode browser, making it available around the world. Very shortly, it was everywhere. In a fateful decision that significantly helped the web to grow, Berners-Lee managed to get CERN to provide a certification on April 30, 1993 that the web technology and program code were in the public domain so that anyone could use and improve them. Because of this, the World Wide Web is available to everyone at no cost. | |
| 48 | Name: | Dr. R. Stephen Berry | | | Institution: | University of Chicago | | | Year Elected: | 2011 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1931 | | | Death Date: | July 26, 2020 | | | | | | |
R. Stephen Berry was the James Franck Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. He had been at The University of Chicago since 1964; previously he was an Assistant Professor at Yale, and earlier, an Instructor at the University of Michigan. He is a Denver native, and in East High School, a Finalist in what was then the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. In September, 2011, he was inducted into the East High Alumni Heritage Hall. He went to Harvard, where he earned his A.B. and Ph.D., and met Carla Friedman, whom he married in 1955. In his career, he has worked on a variety of subjects ranging from strictly scientific matters to a variety of topics in policy. He has held visiting professorships at other universities, including the University of Copenhagen (1967 and 1979), the Université de Paris-Sud (1979-80), the University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo (1984), and Oxford University (1973-74, 1980 and in 1986-87, as the Newton-Abraham Professor). He spent 1994 at the Freie Universität Berlin as an awardee of the Humboldt Prize. He has close associations with the Aspen Center for Physics (Board of Directors, 1978-84) and was a co-founder of the Telluride Summer Research Center (now Telluride Science Research Center) (Board of Directors, 1984-present; President, 1989-93). In 1983 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and was its Home Secretary from 1999 until 2003. He was also a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Vice-President, 1987-90) and is a Foreign Member of the Royal Danish Academy. In 1997, he received the Heyrovsky Medal of the Czech Academy of Sciences. In 2010, he received a Diploma Science Honoris Causa from the Romanian Medical Society. His scientific research has been both theoretical and experimental, in areas of atomic and molecular clusters and chaos, topographies and dynamics of complex potential surfaces, atomic collisions and photoionization, protein dynamics and interactions, and, for many years, finite-time thermodynamics, a new approach to extend thermodynamics toward energy efficiency. His experimental work included studies of negative ions, detection and reactions of transient molecular species, photoionization and other laser-matter interactions. Some of his work outside traditional science has involved interweaving thermodynamics with economics and resource policy, including efficient use of energy. He has sometimes worked since the mid-1970s with issues of science and the law, and with management of scientific data. He has also worked in matters of scientific ethics and of some aspects of national security. His current scientific interests include the dynamics of atomic and molecular clusters, the basis of "guided" protein folding and other "structure-seeking" processes, and the thermodynamics of time-constrained processes and the efficient use of energy. He has been author or coauthor of five books, including one on thermodynamic optimization and one on the total social costs of coal and nuclear power. He was author or coauthor of over 530 published papers. | |
| 49 | Name: | Professor Sir Michael Victor Berry | | | Institution: | University of Bristol | | | Year Elected: | 2021 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1941 | | | | | | |
Michael Berry is Melville Wills Professor of Physics (Emeritus) at the University of Bristol, UK, where he has been for more than twice as long he has not. He is a physicist, focusing on the physics of the mathematics...of the physics. Applications include the geometry of singularities (caustics on large scales, vortices on fine scales) in optics and other waves, connections between classical and quantum physics, and the physical asymptotics of divergent series. He delights in finding the arcane in the mundane - abstract and subtle concepts in familiar or dramatic phenomena:
*Singularities of smooth gradient maps in rainbows and tsunamis;
*The Laplace operator in oriental magic mirrors;
*Elliptic integrals in the polarization pattern of the clear blue sky;
*Geometry of twists and turns in quantum indistinguishability;
*Matrix degeneracies in overhead-projector transparencies;
*Gauss sums in the light beyond a humble diffraction grating. | |
| 50 | Name: | Dr. Lipman Bers | | | Institution: | Columbia University | | | Year Elected: | 1980 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 104. Mathematics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1914 | | | Death Date: | 10/29/93 | | | | |
| 51 | Name: | Dr. Hans A. Bethe | | | Institution: | Cornell University | | | Year Elected: | 1947 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1906 | | | Death Date: | March 6, 2005 | | | | |
| 52 | Name: | Dr. A. Francis Birch | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 1955 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 105. Physical Earth Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1903 | | | Death Date: | 2/1/92 | | | | |
| 53 | Name: | Raymond T. Birge | | | Year Elected: | 1943 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1887 | | | Death Date: | 3/22/80 | | | | |
| 54 | Name: | Dr. Robert J. Birgeneau | | | Institution: | University of California, Berkeley | | | Year Elected: | 2006 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 106. Physics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Living
| | | Birth Date: | 1942 | | | | | | |
Robert J. Birgeneau became the ninth chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, on September 22, 2004. An internationally distinguished physicist, he is a leader in higher education and is well known for his commitment to diversity and equity in the academic community. He stepped down from the Chancellorship in May 2013 and returned to the faculty in the Department of Physics at Berkeley.
Before coming to Berkeley, Birgeneau served four years as president of the University of Toronto. He previously was Dean of the School of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he spent 25 years on the faculty. He is a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society of London, the American Philosophical Society and other scholarly societies. He has received many awards for teaching and research and is one of the most cited physicists in the world for his work on the fundamental properties of materials.
In 2006, Birgeneau received a special Founders Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences along with President John Hennessy of Stanford University and filmmaker George Lucas. Established in the 225th anniversary year of the Academy, this award honors men, women and institutions that have advanced the ideals and embody the spirit of the Academy founders - a commitment to intellectual inquiry, leadership and active engagement. In 2008, Birgeneau and President Nancy Kantor of Syracuse University received the 2008 Carnegie Corporation Academic Leadership Award as "Champions of Excellence and Equity in Education." The American Institute of Physics awarded him the Karl Taylor Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics in 2012. In 2015 he was honored with the 2015 Darius and Susan Anderson Distinguished Service Award of the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2016 he was chosen as the National Science Board's Vannevar Bush Awardee.
A Toronto native, Birgeneau received his B.Sc. in mathematics from the University of Toronto in 1963 and his Ph.D. in physics from Yale University in 1966. He served on the faculty of Yale for one year, spent one year at Oxford University, and was a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories from 1968 to 1975. He joined the physics faculty at MIT in 1975 and was named Chair of the Physics Department in 1988 and Dean of Science in 1991. He became the 14th president of the University of Toronto on July 1, 2000.
He and his wife, Mary Catherine, have four grown children and eight grandchildren. | |
| 55 | Name: | George D. Birkhoff | | | Year Elected: | 1921 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1884 | | | Death Date: | 11/12/44 | | | | |
| 56 | Name: | Dr. Garrett Birkhoff | | | Institution: | Harvard University | | | Year Elected: | 1960 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 104. Mathematics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1911 | | | Death Date: | 11/22/96 | | | | |
| 57 | Name: | Dr. David Blackwell | | | Institution: | University of California, Berkeley | | | Year Elected: | 1990 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 104. Mathematics | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1919 | | | Death Date: | July 8, 2010 | | | | | | |
David Blackwell was professor of statistics and mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley from 1954 until his retirement in 1989, when he was named Professor Emeritus of Statistics. He also held positions at Southern University, Clark College and Howard University and worked for the RAND Corporation between 1948 and 1950, where he developed an interest in game theory. His research contributions combine great breadth with deep creativity, and in several areas his work set the course for subsequent research. He was one of the first major contributors in the field of sequential analysis, a subject that is of wide practical interest, and his analysis of Bayesian sequential procedures had a major impact on further developments in this field. His work on the theory of dynamic programming was central to the development of this immensely practical and widely applicable field. Dr. Blackwell has served as president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and has also been vice president of the American Statistical Association, the International Statistical Institute and the American Mathematical Society. In 1965 he became the first African American named to the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Blackwell is the recipient of numerous honors, including the von Neumann Theory Prize, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He died on July 8, 2010, in Berkeley, at age 91. | |
| 58 | Name: | Dr. Jacques Blamont | | | Institution: | University of Paris IV; Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales | | | Year Elected: | 2002 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Subdivision: | 101. Astronomy | | | Residency: | International | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1926 | | | Death Date: | April 13, 2020 | | | | | | |
A distinguished scholar, leader of space research and commander of the Legion of Honor, Jacques Blamont was an internationally recognized scientist and Professor at the University of Paris - VI and Conseiller du President du CNES. He pioneered planetary exploration, leading CNES in mission design and planning, including joint efforts with the USSR. He promoted a rapprochement between the U.S. and USSR in troubled times. Working with NASA, Dr. Blamont exhibited remarkable creativeness in the design of space vehicles, scientific instruments and research approaches. His work and guidance have proven of enormous benefit to the United States. A broad intellectual, he wrote an almost poetical work on the evolution of science. His publications include Vénus dévoilée, Voyage autour d'une planète (1987); Le Chiffre et le Songe, Histoire politique de la découverte (1993); Le Lion et le Moucheron, Histoire des Marrances de Toulouse (2000); and Introduction au Siècle des Menaces (2004). Jacques Blamont died April 13, 2020 in Chatillon, France at the age of 93. | |
| 59 | Name: | Gilbert A. Bliss | | | Year Elected: | 1926 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1876 | | | Death Date: | 5/8/51 | | | | |
| 60 | Name: | Felix Bloch | | | Year Elected: | 1965 | | | Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | | | Residency: | Resident | | | Living? : |
Deceased
| | | Birth Date: | 1905 | | | Death Date: | 9/10/83 | | | | |
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