President's Address

John P. Holdren, Ph.D.

AAAS President; Director, The Woods Hole Research Center; Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy, Harvard University

Trained in engineering and plasma physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University, Holdren co-founded the graduate program in energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley in 1973 after brief stints at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Caltech. At Harvard he teaches both in the Kennedy School of Government—where he Directs the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy—and in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. His work has focused on energy technology and policy, global environmental change, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation.

Larry Page

Co-Founder and President, Products, Google Inc.

Larry Page was Google's founding CEO and grew the company to more than 200 employees and profitability before moving into his role as president, products in April 2001. Since then, the company has grown to more than 5,000 employees worldwide. The son of Michigan State University computer science professor Dr. Carl Victor Page, Larry's love of computers began at age six. He was an honors graduate from the University of Michigan, where he earned a B.S. degree in engineering. During his time there, Larry built an inkjet printer out of Lego™ bricks. While in the Ph.D. program in computer science at Stanford University, Larry met Sergey Brin and together they developed and ran Google, which began operating in 1998. Larry went on leave from Stanford after earning his master's degree. In 2002, he was named a World Economic Forum Global Leader for Tomorrow. He is a member of the National Advisory Committee of the University of Michigan College of Engineering, and together with Co-Founder Sergey Brin, Larry was honored with the Marconi Prize in 2004. He is a trustee on the board of the X PRIZE, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2004.

Steven Chu, Ph.D.

Director, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

The Energy Problem and What We Can Do To Solve It

A renowned scholar and international expert in atomic physics, laser spectroscopy, biophysics, and polymer physics, Chu oversees the oldest and most varied of the multi-program research laboratories of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). While at Stanford University, his groundbreaking work in cooling and trapping atoms by using laser light led to the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997, an honor he shared with two colleagues. 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. He also helped start Bio-X, a multi-disciplinary initiative that brings together the physical and biological sciences with engineering and medicine.

Mohamed H.A. Hassan, Ph.D.

Executive Director, Academy of Sciences for the Developing World

International Cooperation on Science and Technology for Sustainable Well-Being

As head of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS), Trieste, Italy, Hassan has been a key player in introducing research on climate issues, especially how climate affects the lives of the most underserved populations. He also is president of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and secretary general of the Third World Network of Scientific Organizations. One of Africa's most distinguished scientists, Hassan was born in the Sudan and holds a Ph.D. degree in plasma physics from the University of Oxford, United Kingdom (1974). A former professor and dean of the School of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Khartoum, he received the order of scientific merit of Brazil and the order of merit of Italy. He is a fellow of TWAS, AAS, and the Islamic Academy of Science; honorary member of the Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical, and Natural Sciences and the Palestine Academy of Science and Technology; corresponding member of the Belgian Royal Overseas Academy of Sciences; and foreign fellow of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences. His research areas include theoretical plasma physics, physics of wind erosion, and sand transport.

Susan Solomon, Ph.D.

Senior Scientist, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Assessing the Physical Science of Climate Change: Key Findings of IPCC (2007)

A leading atmospheric scientist at the Earth System Research Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Solomon is well known for her pioneering work in identifying the mechanism that produces the Antarctic ozone hole and for her many contributions toward the science of global environmental problems. Within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), she is co-chair of Working Group I, which assesses the scientific basis of the climate system and climate change. The key findings of a new report, which are the subject of this lecture, will represent a comprehensive state-of-the-science through a rigorous multi-year assessment process involving more than 130 authors and more than 600 expert and government reviewers.

Michael E. Brown, Ph.D., Professor of Planetary Astronomy, California Institute of Technology
Planets, Dwarf Planets, and Other Ice Balls at the Edge of the Solar System

Vicki Colvin, Ph.D., Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Rice University
Sustainable Nanotechnology: Making High Technology Safe Technology

Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
HIV/AIDS: 25 Years and Counting

Marcia McNutt, Ph.D., President and CEO, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
Sustainable Resources from the Oceans: Taking Some Lessons (Good and Bad) from the Shore Side

Elinor Ostrom, Ph.D., Co-Director, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University; Founding Director, Center for the Study of Institutional Diversity, Arizona State University
Sustainable Social-Ecological Systems: An Impossibility?

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Ph.D., Chief Adviser to the German Government on Climate and Related Issues; Director, Potsdam Institute
Climate and Energy Security: Do We Need a Global Manhattan Project?

Kerry Sieh, Ph.D., Robert P. Sharp Professor of Geology, California Institute of Technology
The Intersection of Burgeoning Human Populations and Natural Hazards

Robert Sapolsky, Ph.D., John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biological Sciences and Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford University
2007 John P. McGovern Lecture in the Behavioral Sciences
Stress, Health, and Coping

Keith Wailoo, Ph.D., Professor of History, Rutgers University; Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, CA
2007 George Sarton Award Lecture in the History and Philosophy of Science
Discipline and Disease: The Social Transformation of Cancer in the Age of Biomedicine