G. Wayne Clough, Ph.D.

Secretary, Smithsonian Institution

Scientific Literacy — Where Are Our Forçados When We Need Them?

Dr. Clough is the 12th Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, leading the world’s largest museum and research complex with 19 museums, nine research centers, the National Zoo, and research activities in more than 90 countries. Clough envisions a new era for the 164-year-old Institution, expanding the Smithsonian’s global relevance and helping the nation shape its future through research, education, and scientific discovery on major topics of the day. One of his first initiatives led to a new strategic plan that speaks to four grand challenges that will bring together the diverse resources of the Smithsonian’s museums and science centers through interdisciplinary approaches. Ensuring that the Institution’s vast collection is accessible and available to everyone is a priority for Clough and the new strategic plan. Efforts are underway to digitize much of the Smithsonian’s 137 million objects in the collection and use the World Wide Web and Smithsonian experts and scholars to reach out to new audiences in the United States and around the world.

Regina E. Dugan, Ph.D.

Director
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

Vision Without Execution Is Daydreaming: A Year of Investments, Risks, and Payoffs at DARPA

Dr. Dugan is the first women to direct the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Founded in 1958, DARPA”s mission is to prevent strategic surprise for the United States as well as create strategic surprise for our adversaries. This mission implies one imperative for the agency: radical innovation for national security. Today DARPA is the principal agency within the U.S. Department of Defense for research, development, and demonstration of high-risk, high-payoff projects for combat forces. Experienced in counterterrorism and defense against explosive threats, Dr. Dugan first served the nation as a DARPA program manager from 1996 to 2000. She directed a diverse $100 million portfolio of programs. She led a counterterrorism task force in 1999 and, from 2001 to 2003, she served as a special advisor to the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. Dr. Dugan obtained her doctorate degree in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology and her master”s and bachelor”s degrees from Virginia Tech.

Gerard Karsenty, M.D., Ph.D.

Paul A. Marks Professor and Chair, Department of Genetics and Development
Columbia University Medical Center

Biology Without Walls: The Novel Endocrinology of Bone

Dr. Karsenty”s work has focused on skeletal development and physiology. His laboratory has been instrumental in identifying Runx2 as the master gene of osteoblast differentiation and in deciphering the entire genetic cascade of osteoblast differentiation. Research also identified the master gene of parathyroid glands development. Additional efforts use molecular genetics to understand known functions of the skeleton and to discover its novel functions. This line of work started with the molecular elucidation of bone mineralization and quickly moved to the study of bone remodeling. It is based on the hypothesis that there must be a common control of bone mass and energy metabolism. Testing this hypothesis revealed the existence of a central control of bone mass, a function regulated by leptin, a hormone appearing during evolution with bone cells and acting on bone through brain-derived serotonin and the sympathetic nervous systems. The lab also showed that gut-derived serotonin is a powerful inhibitor of bone formation. Lastly in a brisk departure of the view of bone as a mere recipient of endocrine influences, his laboratory demonstrated that it is an endocrine organ regulating glucose metabolism through the osteoblast-derived hormone osteocalcin whose activity is determined by the osteoclast.

Lisa Randall, Ph.D.

Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science
Harvard University

String Theory and New Physics

Dr. Randall is an American theoretical physicist and a leading expert on particle physics and cosmology. She works on several of the competing models of string theory in the quest to explain the fabric of the universe. Her most well known contribution to the field is the Randall-Sundrum model, first published in 1999 with Raman Sundrum. She was the first tenured woman in the Princeton University physics department and the first tenured female theoretical physicist at MIT and Harvard University. In 2008, Dr. Randall was among Esquire Magazine”s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century.” Her research concerns elementary particles and fundamental forces and has involved the development and study of a wide variety of models, the most recent involving extra dimensions of space. She has made advances in understanding and testing the Standard Model of particle physics, supersymmetry, models of extra dimensions, resolutions to the hierarchy problem concerning the weakness of gravity and experimental tests of these ideas, cosmology of extra dimensions, baryogenesis, cosmological inflation, and dark matter. She earned her Ph.D. degree from Harvard University.

Subra Suresh, Ph.D.

Director
National Science Foundation

Collaboration and Competition: Each Requires Excellence

Previously, Dr. Suresh served as dean of the engineering school and as Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A mechanical engineer who later became interested in materials science and biology, Dr. Suresh has done pioneering work on the biomechanics of blood cells under the influence of diseases such as malaria. From 2000 to 2006, he served as the head of the MIT Department of Materials Science and Engineering. He joined MIT in 1993 as the R.P. Simmons Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and held joint faculty appointments in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Biological Engineering as well as the Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Suresh holds a bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, a master's degree from Iowa State University, and a doctorate from MIT.

Patrick Cunningham, Ph.D.

Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government of Ireland

Growing the Knowledge Economy: An Irish Perspective

In addition to his advisory role, Dr. Cunningham is professor of animal genetics at Trinity College, University of Dublin. He holds degrees in agricultural science and animal nutrition from the National University of Ireland and a Ph.D. degree in Animal Genetics from Cornell University. He was formerly deputy director of research in the Irish National Agriculture and Food Research Institute, visiting professor at the Economic Development Institute of the World Bank, and director of the Animal Production and Health Division, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He has published extensively on the genetics of domesticated animals and is a recipient of the Boyle Medal, Ireland's premier award in science. Dr. Cunningham led the Irish team behind the successful bid to host the 2012 European City of Science event in Dublin and is co-founder of the biotechnology company IdentiGEN.

Samantha B. Joye, Ph.D.

Professor of Marine Sciences
University of Georgia, Athens

Offshore Ocean Aspects of the Gulf Oil Well Blowout

Dr. Joye studies the cycling of nutrients, organic materials, and dissolved gases in the environment. Her research has been widely published in leading scientific journals, and she is regularly called on by national and international scientific and policy agencies for expert commentary including the impacts of climate change on biological and chemical processes in marine ecosystems. She has shown for the first time that even small changes in temperature affect the efficiency of super-sensitive microbes that degrade organic matter in coastal ocean sediments. Her work related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill zone has documented the distribution and chemical composition of deepwater plumes of hydrocarbons, measuring the activities of microbes breaking down the hydrocarbons, and assessing other variables such as dissolved oxygen concentration and nutrient concentrations in spill impacted waters. She earned her Ph.D. degree in marine sciences from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Colin Phillips, Ph.D.

Professor of Linguistics, Neuroscience, and Cognitive Science
University of Maryland, College Park

Linguistic Illusions: Where You See Them, Where You Don”t

Dr. Phillips investigates the psychological and neural mechanisms that underlie humans” remarkable ability to learn, produce, and understand language. He and his colleagues at the Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory at the University of Maryland are pioneers in the use of lab-based methods to understand the mental basis of grammatical rules and constraints. His team”s research takes them to countries throughout the world, where they test typologically diverse languages. Phillips directs the University of Maryland”s new interdisciplinary graduate training program on the Biological and Computational Foundations of Language Diversity, supported by an award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The program combines theoretical, computational, educational, neurocognitive, clinical, and engineering approaches to language science. He also co-directs the Maryland Neuroimaging Center. He has an undergraduate degree in medieval German from Oxford University and a Ph.D. degree in linguistics from MIT.

George Sarton Memorial Lecture in the History and Philosophy of Science

Lawrence M. Principe, Ph.D.

Professor of the History of Science and Technology and Professor of Chemistry,
Johns Hopkins University

Revealing the Secrets of Alchemy

Lawrence Principe holds joint appointments in the Department of History of Science and Technology and Department of Chemistry. His research focuses on the late Medieval and early modern periods, with special attention to the history of alchemy and chemistry. He is working on a study of chemistry at the French Royal Academy of Sciences, 1666-1730. He is the author of numerous articles as well as The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest and co-author of Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry, winner of the 2005 Pfizer Prize. He has produced a recorded lecture series for the Teaching Company on the History of Science to 1700 and Science and Religion, and is the first recipient of the Francis Bacon Medal, awarded for significant contributions to the history of science. He earned undergraduate degrees at the University of Delaware, and did his graduate work at Indiana University, Bloomington and at Johns Hopkins University.

George Sarton, professor of the history of science at Harvard from 1940 to 1951, is widely regarded as one of the key figures in the establishment of the history of science as a discipline in its own right. In 1960, the History of Science Society, under the auspices of AAAS, established the George Sarton Memorial Lecture. The first lecturer was Rene Dubos. The lecture is coordinated through the AAAS History and Philosophy of Science Section and delivered at the AAAS Annual Meeting.

John P. McGovern Lecture in the Behavioral Sciences

Linda M. Bartoshuk, Ph.D.

Bushnell Professor of Community Dentistry and Behavioral Science,
University of Florida, Gainesville

We Live in Different Taste Worlds: How Do We Know and What Does It Mean?

Dr. Bartoshuk is an internationally known researcher specializing in the chemical senses of taste and smell. She holds faculty positions in the College of Dentistry and in the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, and is Director of Human Research in the University of Florida Center for Smell and Taste. Her research explores genetic variations in taste perception and how those variations affect the food people choose and, as a result, shape their health. She also works on the development of psychophysical methodology that can capture sensory and hedonic variation across individuals. Dr. Bartoshuk is an elected member of the Society of Experimental Psychology, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Sciences as well as past president of the Association for Psychological Science. She received her Ph.D. degree in psychology from Brown University.

First delivered in 1990, the John P. McGovern Lecture in the Behavioral Sciences honors prominent behavioral scientists from around the world. This lecture has been endowed by the John P. McGovern Foundation, to enable all scholars to learn and explore the accomplishments and challenges of the behavioral sciences. Dr. McGovern was an internationally recognized practicing physician, scientist, scholar, educator, and humanitarian.

Robert M. Hazen, Ph.D.

Senior Staff Scientist
Carnegie Institution for Science, and
Clarence Robinson Professor of Earth Science
George Mason University

The Deep Carbon Observatory

Dr. Hazen”s research focuses on the role of minerals in the origin of life, including processes such as mineral-catalyzed organic synthesis and the selective adsorption of organic molecules on mineral surfaces. He developed a new approach to mineralogy, called “mineral evolution,” which explores the co-evolution of the geo- and biospheres. He is principal investigator of the Deep Carbon Observatory, a 10-year international effort to achieve fundamental advances in understanding the chemical and biological roles of carbon in Earth”s interior. Dr. Hazen has written more than 350 articles and 20 books on science, history, and music. The Music Men, Wealth Inexhaustible, and Keepers of the Flame, coauthored with his wife, Margaret Hindle Hazen, explore ties between technology and culture. The Breakthrough, The New Alchemists, Why Aren”t Black Holes Black, The Diamond Makers, and Genesis describe the forefront of scientific research. He has published in popular media including Newsweek, Scientific American, Smithsonian Magazine, New Scientist, and The New York Times Magazine. He received B.S. and S.M. degrees in geology at MIT and a Ph.D. degree in earth science at Harvard University.

Sean C. Solomon, Ph.D.

Director, Department of Terrestrial Magnetism
Carnegie Institution for Science

Exploring the Planet Mercury: The MESSENGER Mission

A planetary scientist, seismologist, and marine geophysicist, Dr. Solomon has worked on a wide range of problems in earthquake seismology, geodynamics, magmatism, and the geological and geophysical evolution of the terrestrial planets. He was a co-investigator on the Magellan mission to Venus and on Mars Global Surveyor, he is currently a co-investigator on GRAIL, and since 1999 he has been the Principal Investigator for the MESSENGER mission now en route to orbit Mercury. He also served as a member of the MIT faculty for more than 20 years. Dr. Solomon is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a past President of the American Geophysical Union. He received the Arthur L. Day Prize from the National Academy of Sciences, the G. K. Gilbert Award from the Geological Society of America, the Harry H. Hess Medal from the American Geophysical Union, the NASA Public Service Medal, the Distinguished Alumni Award from Caltech, and (on behalf of the MESSENGER team) the Nelson P. Jackson Aerospace Award from the National Space Club.

George M. Whitesides, Ph.D.

Woodford L. and Ann A. Flowers University Professor
Harvard University

Changing the Paradigms of Science Through Molecular Self-Assembly and Innovative Nanofabrication Techniques

Dr. Whitesides holds one of only 21 University Professorships at Harvard University. A professor of chemistry, he has been a pioneer in microfabrication and nanoscale self-assembly. He is trying to invent a future where medical diagnosis can be done by anyone for little or no cost and co-founded a nonprofit called Diagnostics for All, which aims to provide cheap diagnostic devices. Among his solutions is a low-cost “lab-on-a-chip,” made of paper and carpet tape. His goal is to distribute these simple paper diagnostic systems to developing countries, where people with basic training can administer tests and send results to distant doctors via cameraphone. The single primary objective of his laboratory is “to fundamentally change the paradigms of science.” He recently received the 2009 Dreyfus Prize in the Chemical Sciences for his creation of new materials that have significantly advanced the field of chemistry and its societal benefits and the 2009 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry for his pioneering chemical research in molecular self-assembly and innovative nanofabrication techniques that have resulted in rapid, inexpensive fabrication of ultra small devices. He received his A.B. degree from Harvard College and his Ph.D. in chemistry from Caltech.