American Philosophical Society
Member History

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1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences[X]
1Name:  Dr. Steven Chu
 Institution:  Stanford University
 Year Elected:  1998
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  106. Physics
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1948
   
 
Steve Chu became Berkeley Lab's sixth director on August 1, 2004 and served in that capacity through 2008, when he was named Secretary of Energy in the incoming Obama Administration. He was confirmed as Secretary on January 20, 2009 and returned to Stanford in 2013 as William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Humanities and Sciences, Professor of Physics, and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology. A Nobel Prize-winning scholar and international expert in atomic physics, laser spectroscopy, biophysics and polymer physics, Dr. Chu oversaw the oldest and most varied of the Department of Energy's multi-program research laboratories, the Berkeley Lab. Berkeley Lad has an annual budget of over $600 million and a workforce of about 4,000. His distinguished career in laboratory research began as a postdoctoral fellow in physics at the University of California's Berkeley campus from 1976-78, during which time he also utilized the facilities of Berkeley Lab. His first career appointment was as a member of the technical staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J. where, from 1978-87, his achievements with laser spectroscopy and quantum physics became widely recognized. During the last four years there, he was Head of the Quantum Electronics Research Department, during which time much of his groundbreaking work in cooling and trapping atoms by laser took place. That work eventually led to the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997, an honor he shared with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji of France and United States colleague William D. Phillips. Their discoveries, focusing on the so-called "optical tweezers" laser trap, were instrumental in the study of fundamental phenomena and in measuring important physical quantities with unprecedented precision. At the time, Dr. Chu was the Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Stanford University, where he remained for 17 years as a highly decorated scientist, teacher and administrator. While at Stanford, he chaired the physics department from 1990-93 and from 1999-2001. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and l'Academica Sinica. He is also a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Korean Academy of Sciences and Technology. Dr. Chu has won dozens of awards in addition to the Nobel Prize, including the Science for Art Prize, the Herbert Broida Prize for Spectroscopy, the Richtmeyer Memorial Prize Lecturer, the King Faisal International Prize for Science, the Arthur Schawlow Prize for Laser Science, and the William Meggers Award for Laser Spectroscopy. He was a Humboldt Senior Scientist and a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2008 he delivered the Hans Bethe Lecture at Cornell University entitled "The World's Energy Problem and What We Can Do About It." Born in St. Louis and raised in New York, Dr. Chu earned an A.B. in mathematics and a B.S. in physics at the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. in physics at UC Berkeley. He is author or co-author of more that 200 articles and professional papers, and over two dozen former members of his group are now professors at leading research universities around the world.
 
2Name:  Mr. Roger L. Easton
 Institution:  Naval Research Laboratory & KERNCO & New Hampshire Electric Cooperative
 Year Elected:  1998
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  103. Engineering
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1921
 Death Date:  May 8, 2014
   
 
Roger Easton was born in a small village in northern Vermont to a town doctor and his school teacher wife. He and his older brothers and one younger sister went to local schools where they had very good teachers. He followed his older brother to Middlebury College where he was graduated during World War II. He went to work at the Naval Research Laboratory in 1943 with his initial work being on blind landing system for aircraft. In 1945 he was married to the former Barbara Coulter of Flint, Michigan. They had five children, three girls and two boys and five grandchildren. Two of the girls died in adulthood of two different cancers. When the development of rockets became important, he joined the Rocket Sonde branch and participated in the proposal that put NRL in the satellite launching business. He designed the Vanguard I satellite, now the oldest in space. Following the launch of the Russian Sputnik, he conceived the U.S. Navy Space Surveillance System, an electronic fence extending across the southern U.S. and detecting all satellites that crossed it. Later he added another fence parallel to the first one. With the two fences we were able to obtain near instantaneous orbital elements on all space objects crossing both fences. The second fence was a continuous wave radar type with timing signals sent by the transmitter and detected over the horizon and by reflection. With this fence it was possible to locate the satellites very accurately. However, the fence had one problem: that cesium-beam clocks had to be carried between the transmitter and the receiver in order to synchronize them. From this operation came the idea of having a satellite carry the clock and, since both the transmitter and the receiver would be visible simultaneously, the clock would not need to be a very stable device - a crystal oscillator would do. A few weeks later the idea appeared that this might be the basis of a navigation device with a great virtue of being capable of measuring range and of being passive so the user need not interrogate the satellite and hence the system would not be overloaded. Following these thoughts a simplified version was demonstrated to personnel from the Naval Air Systems Command. A work order followed and two satellites were used for the time transfer between England, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. These satellites used crystal oscillators as their timing sources. The next satellite used a rubidium clock designed by E. Jechart of Germany. Two of them were modified at NRL for use in space, the first ones so used. The next satellite, called either TIMATIONS 4 or NDS 2 (for Navigations Development Satellite) was launched on June 23, 1977 into a 12 hour orbit with cesium beam clocks and almost all of the characteristics of the GPS satellites. With this satellite we were able to measure the change in frequency due to gravitation very well and very close to that predicted by Einstein's general theory of gravitation. In 1980 Roger and Mrs. Easton retired to Canaan, New Hampshire where he started a career in public service. In 1982, he was elected in the first of two terms to the New Hampshire General Court and he later ran, unsuccessfully, for Governor. He served three terms as director of the New Hampshire Electric Cooperative, and he has served on the Planning Board for the Town of Canaan. Awards he has received include the following: The Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award; The Institute of Navigation Thurlow Award; and the Sigma Xi Applied Science Award. Two awards are named for him - one for Space Surveillance and one for Space Navigation. In 1996 Roger Easton was inducted into the GPS Hall of Fame and in 2010 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 1997 he was awarded the Magellanic Premium Award of the American Philosophical Society and, in 1998, he was elected to the Society.
 
3Name:  Dr. William Happer
 Institution:  Princeton University
 Year Elected:  1998
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  106. Physics
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1939
   
 
Dr. William Happer, a Professor in the Department of Physics at Princeton University, is a specialist in modern optics, optical and radiofrequency of atoms and molecules, and spin-polarized atoms and nuclei. Born July 27, 1939 in Vellore, India, Dr. Happer's parents were Lt. Col. William Happer, a Scottish physician in the Indian Army, and Dr. Gladys Morgan Happer, a medical missionary from North Carolina. He received a B.S. degree in physics from the University of North Carolina in 1960 and his Ph.D. degree in physics from Princeton University in 1964. He began his academic career in 1964 at Columbia University as a member of the research and teaching staff of the physics department. While serving as a Professor of Physics he also served as Co-Director of the Columbia Radiation Laboratory from 1971-76, and as Director from 1976-79. In 1980 he joined the faculty at Princeton University. He was named the Class of 1909 Professor of Physics in 1988. On August 5, 1991, with the consent of the Senate, he was appointed Director of Energy Research in the Department of Energy by President George Bush. While serving in that capacity under Secretary of Energy James Watkins, he oversaw a basic research budget of some $3 billon, which included much of the federal funding for high energy and nuclear physics, material science, magnetic confinement fusion, environmental science, biology, the human genome project, and other areas. He remained at the DOE until May 31, 1993 to help during the transition to the Clinton Administration. He was reappointed Professor of Physics at Princeton University on June 1, 1993, and named Eugene Higgens Professor of Physics and Chair of the University Research Board in 1995. He has maintained an interest in applied as well as basic science, and he has served as a consultant to numerous firms, charitable foundations and governmental agencies. From 1987-90 he served as Chairman of the Steering Committee of JASON, a group of scientists and engineers who advise agencies of the Federal Government on matters of defense, intelligence, energy policy and other technical problems. He is a trustee of the MITRE Corporation, the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, and a co-founder in 1994 of Magnetic Imaging Technologies Incorporated (MITI), a small company specializing in the use of laser polarized noble gases for magnetic resonance imaging. MITI was purchased by Nycomed Amersham in 1999. He has published over 160 scientific papers. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He was awarded an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in 1966, an Alexander von Humboldt Award in 1976, the 1997 Broida Prize and the 1999 Davisson-Germer Prize of the American Physical Society and the Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award in 2000. Dr. Happer was married in 1967 to the former Barbara Jean Baker of Rahway, New Jersey. They have two grown children, James William and Gladys Anne.
 
4Name:  Dr. James G. Anderson
 Institution:  Harvard University
 Year Elected:  1998
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1944
   
 
James Anderson has pioneered the development and application of instruments to determine the chemical abundance of chemical radicals in the stratosphere. He established from measurement and theory the abundance of ClO in the stratosphere and then OH, NO, and BrO. This showed unambiguously that Cl from chloroflourocarbons was the cause of the ozone depletion in the Antarctic and that ClO and BrO from industrial sources was the cause of the ozone depletion. They are the basis for quantitatively testing models of the atmosphere. These results are from the very difficult and sophisticated measurements made by him with instrumented stratospheric ballon flights. Dr. Anderson has established a world center of research with brilliant young scientists who are participating in carrying their field forward. Having been Philip S. Weld Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry at Harvard Univeristy since 1978, Dr. Anderson has also served on the faculties of the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Michigan. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1992); the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1985); and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1986). He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado (1970).
 
5Name:  Dr. Marshall N. Rosenbluth
 Institution:  University of California, San Diego & ITER
 Year Elected:  1998
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  106. Physics
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1927
 Death Date:  September 28, 2003
   
6Name:  Dr. Irwin I. Shapiro
 Institution:  Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University & Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 Year Elected:  1998
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  101. Astronomy
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Living
 Birth Date:  1929
   
 
Irwin Shapiro formerly directed the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, arguably the world's largest astronomical research institution, and has been Timken University Professor at Harvard since 1997 and Schlumberger Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1985. He proposed and, with colleagues, verified the fourth test of general relativity, now called the "Shapiro effect." With a former student he initiated the revolution in geodesy based on the use of GPS signals to determine via interferometry the vector distance between points on the Earth with errors at the millimeter level. Strongly advocating improved pre-college science teaching, he has sponsored a cutting-edge educational group at the Center for Astrophysics and has guided the preparation of imaginative new texts and hands-on materials. Dr. Shapiro holds a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard (1955) and is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1969); the National Academy of Sciences (1974); and the American Astronomical Society (division chairman, 1970-71) and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the American Geophysical Union; and the American Physical Society. He was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1998.
 
7Name:  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
   
8Name:  Dr. Ahmed H. Zewail
 Institution:  California Institute of Technology & NSF Laboratory for Molecular Sciences
 Year Elected:  1998
 Class:  1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
 Subdivision:  102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry
 Residency:  Resident
 Living? :   Deceased
 Birth Date:  1946
 Death Date:  August 2, 2016
   
 
Ahmed Zewail was the 1999 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. He was the Linus Pauling Chair Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Physics and the Director of the Physical Biology Center at the California Institute of Technology until his death on August 2, 2016, at the age of 70. Dr. Zewail was educated in Egypt and received his B.S. and M.S. from Alexandria University and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests were directed towards the development of new methodology for understanding the dynamical behavior of life molecules in space and time. Dr. Zewail was the recipient of honors and awards from around the world, including Egyptian postage stamps issued to honor his contributions to science and humanity. He held some 30 honorary degrees in science, medicine, philosophy, law, arts and humane letters. A member of numerous international academies, Ahmed Zewail was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1998.
 
Election Year
1998[X]