Portraits of Great American Scientists

How does a person become a scientist? What special talents, aptitudes, and qualities of character are needed? Why is science important and how should it be used by society? There is no better way to learn about scientists and the whole scientific enterprise than by talking to scientists themselves.

These fifteen biographies, written by promising young students from the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, reveal the many interesting human factors that influenced the lives of successful scientists: how they chose their individual career paths, what obstacles they had to overcome along the way, and where they think science will lead society in the future. They also convey the excitement of discovery that both these established scientists and their young biographers share as they explore their particular scientific interests.

The various biographies cover a wide range of fascinating personalities and their disciplines: Clifford Geertz (cultural anthropology), Mary Claire-King (genetics), Marvin Minsky (artificial intelligence), Story Musgrave and Sally Ride (astronautics), Steven Pinker (psychology/cognitive science), F. Sherwood Rowland (chemistry), Vera Rubin (astronomy), Paul Sereno (paleontology), George Smoot (astrophysics), Charles Townes and Edward Witten (physics), Geerat Vermeij (geology), E. O. Wilson (sociobiology), and Dawn Wright (oceanography).

This inspiring project, all directed by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Leon M. Lederman, is especially welcome at a time when there is widespread concern about the declining level of scientific literacy among Americans. Truly fascinating in content and presentation, these inspiring biographies show that science is a many-faceted and thrilling voyage of discovery.

Leon M. Lederman, Nobel Laureate (Batavia, IL) is the author of Beyond the God Particle, Quantum Physics for Poets, and Symmetry and the Beautiful Universe (coauthored with Christopher T. Hill), as well as The God Particle (with Dick Teresi). He has served as the editor of Portraits of Great American Scientists and a contributor to Science Literacy for the Twenty-First Century. He is formerly the Resident Scholar at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy and Pritzker Professor of Science at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and he is director emeritus of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Judith A. Scheppler, Ph.D. (Chicago, IL), is the Coordinator of Student Inquiry and Director of the Grainger Center for Imagination and Inquiry at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy. She is also the coauthor of Biotechnology Explorations: Applying the Fundamentals.