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Biographical sketches of scientists following interesting career paths



Opportunities in Research and Activism in Energy and Environmental Science and Policy
Daniel Kammen describes his switch from a physics postdoc to his current assistant professorship at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton.
Naturejobs: Interviews
Very readable interviews with some of science's most influential and engaging personalities. Elias Zerhouni (US National Institutes of Health director) Sir Richard Sykes (Rector of Imperial college London) are the first two.
Just Like a Film Script, From Jobless to Genius
by Claudia Dreifus, New York Times, January 23, 2001. "Dr. Shawn Carlson's biography reads like a mutant graft of Mr. Wizard meets Horatio Alger: an unhappy physicist working in a mainstream laboratory decides to quit his job and start a nonprofit organization aimed at encouraging the projects of backyard tinkerers and garage experimenters. As Dr. Carlson devotes himself to organizing his Society for Amateur Scientists, he drives his family to near-penury. Just as he is about to go broke, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation comes to the rescue with a 'genius grant,' and nearly $300,000."
Lab Rat: What AIDS Researcher Dr. Robert Gallo Did in Pursuit of the Nobel Prize
Seth Roberts, Spy Magazine, July 1990. "'If Machiavelli were to write a book today, he'd call it The Lab Chief.', - a former colleague of Dr. Robert Gallo's"
Professor Romer Goes to Washington
Wall Street Journal, January 25, 2001 (page A1). "Paul Romer is a big-name Stanford University economist who holds the refreshingly naive view that if you explain a good idea to enough important people, they'll do something. So he came to Washington last week, not for black-tie inaugural receptions, but to talk up a scheme to ensure that life is better for future generations. The problem, as Mr. Romer sees it, is that the U.S. isn't turning out enough scientists and engineers to make discoveries that will pay off in 50 years."
A.I. Expert Lands in Real Trouble
Richard Wallace, the artificial intelligence expert who has twice won the prestigious Loebner Prize in AI for his work on the ALICE chat robot, was served with a temporary restraining order, after the regents of the University of California alleged that he was "unstable" and had threatened Kenneth Goldberg, a UC Berkeley professor, with physical harm.