APS Member History

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41	Name:	Dr. Gerald J. Wasserburg
	Institution:	California Institute of Technology
	Year Elected:	1982
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	105. Physical Earth Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1927
	Death Date:	June 13, 2016

	Gerald Joseph Wasserburg was born on March 25, 1927 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the son of Charles Wasserburg and Sarah (Levine) Wasserburg. He attended New Brunswick public schools and served in the U.S. Army as a rifleman with the 23rd Reg., 2nd Division. He was discharged in 1946 and attended Rutgers University for two years and then the University of Chicago, where he obtained a B.Sc. in physics in 1951 and an M.Sc. in geology in 1952. He served on the Juneau Ice Field Research Project under Henri Bader in 1950 and served as a consultant at the Argonne National Laboratory from 1952-55. He conducted graduate research at the University of Chicago under H. C. Urey and M. G. Inghram III and received his Ph.D. in 1954. He also served as a research associate at the university's Institute for Nuclear Studies from 1954-55. Dr. Wasserburg then moved to the California Institute of Technology, where, in the course of five decades of service, he was assistant professor (1955-59), associate professor (1959-62), professor of geology and geophysics (1962-82), John D. MacArthur Professor of Geology and Geophysics (1982-2001), Chairman of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (1987-89) and Professor Emeritus, (2002-). Dr. Wasserburg also undertook extensive work for NASA as an advisor (1968-88) and as a member of the Lunar Sample Analysis Planning Team (LSAPT), Manned Spacecraft Center (1968-71), the Lunar Sample Review Board (1987-88), the Facilities Working Group of LSAPT, Johnson Space Center (1972-present); the Science Working Panel for Apollo Missions (1971-73); the Physical Sciences Committee (1971-75); and the Lunar Base Steering Committee (1984). He also chaired the Lunar Sample Analysis Planning Team (1970) and the Committee for Planetary and Lunar Exploration (1975-78). Dr. Wasserburg was a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (president, planetology section, 1976) and the Geological Society of America, a member of the Meteoritical Society (vice president, 1985, president, 1987-88) and the American Chemical Society and a former member of the American Physical Society, the U.S. National Committee for Geochemistry, the Committee for Planetary Exploration Study, the National Research Council, and the Advisory Council of the Petroleum Research Fund. He was also the associate editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research (1967-74) and the editor of Earth and Planetary Science Letters (1968-71) and served on the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Wasserburg's research interests included geochemistry, geophysics and astrophysics; the use of the methods of chemical physics to problems in the evolution of the earth and the solar system; and the development of ultra-high precision and high sensitivity mass spectrometric and chemical techniques, and the application of these techniques to determine the time scales of formation of the solar system from the interstellar medium, and the evolution of planets including the earth, moon and meteorites. His major research includes short-lived radioactive nuclei in the early solar system (in particular 26Al and 107Pd); the time scales of nucleosynthesis, chemical evolution of the interstellar medium and the IGM, connections between the interstellar medium and the solar system, and the isotopic records of planetary evolution and chemical differentiation. He had also conducted general study of processes using long- and short-lived natural radioactivities, including the interaction of water and rock and the origin of natural gases, and the application of thermodynamic methods to geologic systems. Dr. Wasserburg's professional honors include membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1967) and the National Academy of Sciences (1971); NASA's Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award (1970); the Arthur L. Day Medal from the Geological Society of America (1970); NASA's Medal for Distinguished Public Service (1972 & 1978); the J. F. Kemp Medal for Distinguished Public Service from Columbia University (1973); Meteoritical Society's Leonard Medal (1975); the V. M. Goldschmidt Medal of the Geochemical Society (1978); the Arthur L. Day Prize and Lectureship, National Academy of Sciences (1981); a John D. MacArthur Professorship (1982); a Regents Fellowship, Smithsonian Instit.; the J. Lawrence Smith Medal of the National Academy of Sciences (1985); the Geological Society of London's Wollaston Medal (1985); the Senior U.S. Scientist Award, Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (1985); the Harry H. Hess Medal of the American Geophysical Union (1985); the Crafoord Prize, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (1986); the Holmes Medal, European Union of Geosciences (1987); and the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal (1991). He received the Bowie Medal of the American Geophysical Union in 2008. He was also a fellow of the Geological Society of London (honorary, 1995) and the Geochemical Society and the European Association for Geochemistry (1996). Dr. Wasserburg married Naomi Z. Orlick in 1951. The couple have two children: Charles David and Daniel Morris. Gerald Wasserburg died June 13, 2016, at the age of 89.

42	Name:	Dr. George W. Wetherill
	Institution:	Carnegie Institution of Washington
	Year Elected:	1998
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	105. Physical Earth Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1925
	Death Date:	July 19, 2006

43	Name:	Dr. Robert M. White
	Institution:	National Academy of Engineering & University Corporation for Atmospheric Research & H. John Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and Environment & Washington Advisory Group
	Year Elected:	1991
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	105. Physical Earth Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1923
	Death Date:	October 14, 2015

	Robert M. White advises on environment, energy, climate change, and development and management of organizations and research programs for the Washington Advisory Group, of which he was one of the founders and its first president. He was president of the National Academy of Engineering from 1983-95. Previously, he was president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau, U.S. Commissioner to the International Whaling Commission, U.S. Permanent Representative to the World Meteorological Organization, and the first Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Prior to government service, he founded one of the first corporations devoted to environmental science and services.

44	Name:	Dr. M. Gordon Wolman
	Institution:	Johns Hopkins University
	Year Elected:	1999
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	105. Physical Earth Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1924
	Death Date:	February 24, 2010

	M. Gordon Wolman is the B. Howell Griswold, Jr. Professor of Geography and International Affairs at The Johns Hopkins University. A native of Baltimore, Dr. Wolman was educated at Johns Hopkins (B.A., 1949) and Harvard University (Ph.D., 1953) and has taught at Johns Hopkins since 1962, prior to which he worked for the U.S. Geological Survey. Dr. Wolman's research has focused on human activities and their interactions with the natural processes impacting the earth's surface, specifically, the control of quantity and quality of streamflow and the behavior of rivers. His studies of environmental processes have involved him in work on environmental policies dealing with water, land and energy resources. Dr. Wolman's work has been recognized with many awards including the Cullman Geography Medal of the American Geography Society, the Rachel Carson Award, the Ian Campbell Medal of the American Geological Institute, the Penrose Medal of the Geological Society of America and the Horton Medal of the American Geophysical Union. A past president of the Geological Society of America, Dr. Wolman was elected to the National Academy of Science in 1988 and the National Academy of Engineering in 2002. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1999.

45	Name:	Dr. Carl Wunsch
	Institution:	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	Year Elected:	2003
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	105. Physical Earth Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1941

	Carl Wunsch received his Ph.D. in geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967. He joined the faculty that same year as assistant professor of oceanography and has remained at M.I.T. throughout his distinguished career. He is currently the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physical Oceanography. Dr. Wunsch is the author of (with W. Munk, P. Worcester) Ocean Acoustic Tomography (1995), The Ocean Circulation Inverse Problem (1996), and Discrete Inverse and State Estimation Problems (2006). Carl Wunsch has probably worked on as broad a set of problems in physical oceanography as anyone now active, from seagoing to theory to data analysis to instrument development. He brought inverse methods to solving the ancient oceanographic problem of determining the general circulation. Walter Munk and Carl Wunsch invented ocean acoustic tomography. Dr. Wunsch proposed and helped organize the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, the largest and probably most successful of all oceanographic experiments. It included the remarkably successful use of altimetric satellites, which owes something to Wunsch for seeing what they could do. In recent years, Dr. Wunsch has begun trying to use what was learned about the modern ocean to bear on the interpretation of the paleoceanographic record. Dr. Wunsch received the Founder's Prize of the Texas Instruments Foundation in 1975, the A.G. Huntsman Prize from the Bedford Institute of Oceanography and Government of Nova Scotia in 1988, the Maurice Ewing Medal from the American Geophysical Union and U.S. Navy in 1990, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Public Service Medal in 1993, and the Henry Stommel Research Prize from the American Meteorological Society in 2000. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the Royal Society of London. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2003.

46	Name:	Dr. Hatten S. Yoder
	Institution:	Carnegie Institution of Washington
	Year Elected:	1979
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	105. Physical Earth Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Deceased
	Birth Date:	1921
	Death Date:	August 2, 2003

47	Name:	Dr. Maria T. Zuber
	Institution:	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
	Year Elected:	2005
	Class:	1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
	Subdivision:	105. Physical Earth Sciences
	Residency:	Resident
	Living? :	Living
	Birth Date:	1958

	Maria Zuber is E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and Vice President for Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A world leader in the study of planetary topography and interior structure, she co-led the team that produced the topographic map of Mars that is more accurate than Earth's. Her team also developed the first reliable models of the interiors of the moon and Mars that showed that both bodies cooled rapidly after accretion. Dr. Zuber also served on the Presidential Commission tasked with implementing President Bush's space exploration plan and has authored or co-authored over 140 peer-reviewed publications. In 2002 she was named to Discover magazine's list of the 50 most important women in science.

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