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Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
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2015
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Stanford Historical Society
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professors
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- Title:
- Abrams, Herbert L.
- Author:
- Abrams, Herbert L. and Berra, Kathy
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- Herbert Abrams was an emeritus professor of radiology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, a senior research fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and a prolific author of books and scholarly articles. He contributed greatly to the Stanford community through his interests in diagnostic radiology and nuclear weapons. In this three-part interview, Abrams discussed his youth in New York, his residency and teaching experience at Stanford’s medical school, and how his interest shifted from radiology to nuclear weapons research and activism. Abrams described his childhood in Brooklyn, centering his discussion on his family and his high school years. His family’s love of language seemingly influenced Abrams to pursue an English major and to work for a variety of newspapers and journals at Cornell University, ultimately taking a job after graduation as a newsreel media analyst for the government. Although his interest in Freudian literature prompted Abrams to apply to medical school, once enrolled at SUNY Downstate College of Medicine, he quickly redirected his efforts from psychiatry to radiology. Abrams provided valuable details about Stanford’s original medical school in San Francisco. From 1948 until 1959, Abrams served first as a resident and then as a professor at San Francisco General Hospital and Stanford Lane Hospital. Abrams found the experience both challenging and exciting because, due to the small-staff environment, faculty acted as both administrators and clinicians. Abrams also discussed the increasing importance of faculty research efforts after the medical school moved to the Stanford campus in 1959, highlighting developments in biplane imagery, catheter procedures, and radiation effect studies. Against the backdrop of his move from Stanford to Harvard, Abrams turned his attention to his longstanding interest in social activism and growing concern regarding nuclear weapons. Although he previously worked with the Physicians for Social Responsibility group, Abrams’ efforts pivoted towards promoting a more international organization called the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. This group studied all matters related to nuclear weapons, worked to raise awareness, and educated Congress about the effects of nuclear war. Abrams went on to discuss his return to Stanford in 1985 and his continued shift from a focus on diagnostic radiology to nuclear weapons research and activism. Increasingly, Abrams spent time at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation studying the effects of nuclear weapons exposure and the intersection of weapons access and mental health. In conclusion, Abrams addressed the need to educate the public about present-day nuclear threats and discussed the various leisure interests he pursued in this post-retirement period.
- Topic:
- Herbert Abrams, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, higher education, professors, medicine, and Nobel Peace Prize
- Imprint:
- June 5, 2015 - June 17, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- Chace, William M.
- Author:
- Chace, William M. and Steinhart, Peter
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- William M. Chace is Professor of English and President Emeritus of Emory University and Honorary Professor Emeritus of English at Stanford University. In his interview, he discusses the changes in higher education nationally and at Stanford University from 1956 to 2015, a time when colleges and universities transitioned from educating for citizenry to educating for participation in the economy and when funding sources also changed. Chace discusses his experience teaching at Stillman College as a Woodrow Wilson Scholar and his graduate education at the University of California, Berkeley, including witnessing Free Speech Movement protests. He describes his days as an assistant professor in the Stanford English Department, recalling campus protests against the Vietnam War, his experience teaching a course in African-American literature in response to demands from the Black Student Union, and his colleague in the English Department, Bruce Franklin. Chace reflects on the increasing specialization of faculty and its impact on the teaching of general knowledge courses. He discusses factors that have contributed to the declining importance of the humanities from the perspective of university administrators, and he recalls debates over the teaching of Western Culture at Stanford. He recounts the birth and progress of Stanford’s Continuing Studies program and gives his impressions on the value and rewards of skilled teaching.
- Topic:
- William M. Chace, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, tenure, Stanford Continuing Studies program, higher education, professors, adult education, humanities, Vietnam War protests, African American students, and English Department
- Imprint:
- November 12, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- Cottle, Richard W.
- Author:
- Cottle, Richard W. and Scott, Kandis
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- In the first of two interviews with Kandis Scott, Richard W. “Dick” Cottle gives a brief account of his birth in Chicago and education in neighboring Oak Park, Illinois. He reflects on his undergraduate and graduate studies in mathematics: first at Harvard and then (after a two-year interlude of prep-school mathematics teaching) at the University of California, Berkeley where he had the good fortune of working at the Radiation Laboratory and the Operations Research Center with George Dantzig. Cottle relates how upon completion of his doctoral studies, he took a position at Bell Telephone Laboratories for two years, accepted a one-year visiting faculty position with Stanford’s Operations Research Program (OR), and became a member of the tenure-line faculty when the OR Program became the Department of Operations Research. He talks about his rise through the academic ranks, his collaboration with George Dantzig (who had left Berkeley and joined Stanford), the formation of the Mathematical and Computational Sciences Program, the anti-Viet Nam War turbulence, his receipt of the U.S. Senior Scientist Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and eventual chairmanship of the OR Department. He discusses the merger of the OR Department with the Engineering-Economic Systems Department and a second merger four years later with the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management. The second interview returns to the formation of the OR Department, its nature, its chairs, and the contemporaneous deans of the School of Engineering. Cottle recounts stories about his own chairmanship (which ended when the first of the two mergers occurred) and some of the challenges faced by the department. He also talks about events on campus, some of his closest friends on the Stanford faculty, and the effect that international recognition for his scholarly work had on his life at Stanford. He relates how he became involved with the writing of the book Stanford Street Names and other book projects. Responding to interviewer Kandis Scott’s questions, Cottle reflects on changes in the university, his sense of the most notable accomplishments of his career, and the challenges he faces going forward. The interview closes with comments on the influence of his family life.
- Topic:
- Richard W. Cottle, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, higher education, professors, operations research, and Linear Complementarity Problem
- Imprint:
- August 5, 2015 - August 14, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- Ernst, W. Gary.
- Author:
- Ernst, W. Gary and Torre, Alicia
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- In this oral history, W. Gary Ernst, Stanford’s Benjamin M. Page Professor in Earth Sciences, Emeritus, and the former dean of the School of Earth Sciences, revisits his research and teaching career in geology and his experiences as an administrator. Ernst begins his interview by discussing his early life in St. Paul, Minnesota and his days at Carleton College where he was influenced by the charismatic Lawrence Gould. He describes his post-graduate pursuits at the University of Minnesota with Sam Goldich and at John Hopkins and the Carnegie Institution of Washington Geophysical Laboratory where he developed a special expertise in synthesizing amphiboles. Gary explains what drew him to UCLA in 1960 and his activities there. He shares his experiences doing research abroad as a Fulbright Scholar in Japan and on sabbaticals in Switzerland and Asia. Ernst explains how the emerging theory of plate tectonics provided the explanation for the high pressure, low-temperature minerals found in his California field research. Ernst was recruited to Stanford as dean of the School of Earth Sciences in 1989. He arrived at difficult time and was soon confronted with the destruction of the Loma Prieta earthquake, the indirect costs controversy, and budget cuts. He describes his successful efforts to bolster geochemistry through association with the United States Geological Survey and to establish the interdisciplinary Earth Systems Program. He also explains some of the challenges he faced and why he resigned as dean in 1994. Ernst concludes the interview by reflecting on teaching, the advantages and disadvantages of the breadth of his work, emerging trends in the geosciences, and how an undergraduate liberal arts education shaped his career.
- Topic:
- W. Gary Ernst, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, higher education, professors, Stanford University--School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, Stanford University--Department of Geological Sciences, universities and colleges--faculty, universities and colleges--administration, California Coast Ranges, geochemistry, and sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe
- Imprint:
- December 10, 2015 - December 22, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- Gibbs, James Lowell.
- Author:
- Gibbs, James Lowell and Kiefer, Joyce
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- In this 2015 oral history interview, anthropologist James Lowell Gibbs Jr. discusses his early life and education, his fieldwork in Liberia, teaching anthropology to undergraduates, and his service as Stanford University’s first dean of undergraduate studies. Gibbs describes his family background and credits the book African Journey by Eslanda Goode Robeson with sparking his interest in anthropology. He discusses his undergraduate education at Cornell University, especially conducting social science research on intergroup relations as an undergraduate--an experience that would later inform his ideas about undergraduate education as a Stanford administrator. He speaks of the Rotary Foundation Fellowship that allowed him to study anthropology at Cambridge for a year and discusses his graduate education at Harvard, where he learned from Cora Du Bois and others. Shifting to his research, Gibbs describes the circumstances that led him to focus on tribal law among the Kpelle people of Liberia and relates memories of his field work there, including the making of the prize-winning film, The Cows of Dolo Kenpaye. Gibbs recounts his rationale for moving from the University of Minnesota to Stanford in 1966. He describes the founding of the Program in African and Afro-American Studies and the recruitment of St. Clair Drake to direct the program. He recalls some of the work that he did as Stanford’s first dean of undergraduate studies, and he discusses his tenure a chair of the Department of Anthropology and the split of the department that occurred in the late 1990s. Gibbs also discusses his efforts to recruit minority faculty and his work with student-initiated programs such as SWOPSI (Student Workshop on Political and Social Improvement) and SCIRE (Student Center for Innovation in Research and Education). He concludes by commenting on vivid Stanford memories and some of the board positions he has held.
- Topic:
- James Lowell Gibbs Jr., Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, higher education, interviews, professors, Stanford University--Department of Anthropology, Stanford University--Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Kpelle (African people), Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, and anthropologists
- Imprint:
- October 27, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- Jardetzky, Oleg.
- Author:
- Jardetzky, Oleg and Bach, Becky
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- Oleg Jardetzky, professor emeritus of molecular pharmacology at Stanford University School of Medicine and former director of the Stanford Magnetic Resonance Laboratory, discusses his role in the establishment and maturation of the field of medical and biological nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). He also recalls the circumstances that led him from Yugoslavia to the United States and his historical research into his family’s genealogy. He begins the interview explaining how his parents, Russian émigrés, left Yugoslavia for Austria after World War II and the scholarship that brought him to Macalester College in Minnesota. From there he describes his medical and PhD education at the University of Minnesota and his involvement with early NMR protein structure research. He traces his professional track from Minnesota to Caltech to Harvard Medical School to executive positions in industry at Merck Therapeutic Research. He explains how he started the first biological and medical NMR laboratory at Harvard, describing the lab’s funding and how isotopic substitution was used to determine molecular structures. Jardetzky gives a detailed account of his first turbulent years in the Pharmacology Department at Stanford University School of Medicine and offers insights into the department’s politics at the time. He describes the initial equipment built for the Stanford Magnetic Resonance Laboratory and how the university used it. Finally, he ruminates on how his interest in his family’s history led him to genealogy research and the publishing of two books on Polish clans and Russian emigration.
- Topic:
- Oleg Jardetzky, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, higher education, and professors
- Imprint:
- March 20, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- Kailath, Thomas.
- Author:
- Kailath, Thomas and DiPaolo, Andy
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- In this oral history interview, Thomas Kailath, Stanford University’s Hitachi America Professor of Engineering, Emeritus, traces his path from the small town of Pune, India, to his appointment to the faculty of the Stanford Department of Electrical Engineering. He discusses his family background, his education in India and at MIT, and aspects of his varied research career in information theory, controls, signal processing, very-large-scale integration, and beyond. He reflects on his approach to working with graduate students, the academic environment at Stanford, and the interrelationship between teaching and research. Kailath begins the interview by speaking about his childhood in India, describing the state of Kerala where his parents were born, and explaining the Syrian Christian derivation of his first name. He describes his parents and the strong influence they had on him and his education at St. Vincent’s, a convent school run by Jesuit missionaries, where he became intrigued by geometry and proofs. He talks about his college education--first at Fergusson College and then in the highly selective Bachelor of Engineering in Telecom program led by Chandrashekhar Aiya at the College of Engineering, Pune. Interestingly, the only textbook he recalls using was the fourth edition of Frederick Terman’s Electronic and Radio Engineering. Kailath relates the story of how he came to attend graduate school at MIT when Dr. Ganugapati Stephen Krishnayya, the Indian educational attaché in Washington, DC and a man his family knew from church, encouraged him to apply to graduate programs and carried his transcript and letters of recommendation to universities in the United States. After Kailath received a research assistantship at MIT, his father’s employer at Pocha Seeds helped him to secure the funding needed to travel there. Kailath describes the late 1950s and early 1960s at MIT as “the golden time” due to the post-Sputnik availability of funding, including block grants from the Joint Services Electronics Program, and a particularly talented group of faculty and graduate students interested in the new field of information theory. Kailath speaks of his advisor, Jack Wozencraft, the MIT Research Lab of Electronics, his thesis research on linear time-variant filters, and jobs at the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT and Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Kailath recounts details of his recruitment to Stanford in 1963 and discusses the Information Systems Lab. He credits then provost Frederick Terman with creating a great teaching and research environment at Stanford and describes Terman’s approach to developing “steeples of excellence”--strong departments that attracted academic stars who in turn attracted more stars. Kailath recalls some of the challenges that he and his wife, Sarah, encountered as a newly married couple with young children living far from their families in India, and he reflects on the growth of the Indian community in Silicon Valley since the 1960s. Asked about his efforts on India’s behalf, he relates a story about meeting with officials in India’s defense establishment while on sabbatical at the Indian Institute of Science and encouraging them to set up a system of funding similar to the block grants offered by the Joint Services Electronics Program. Kailath reflects on the relationship between academic research and private industry in Silicon Valley, noting that many of his students went on to start companies. He reflects on the importance of “bridging between disciplines” (or interdisciplinary research) and comments on the difficulties that young faculty members face in developing expertise in multiple disciplines. Kailath describes his approach to working with graduate students and credits his wide professional network for directing excellent students to study with him at Stanford. He compares Stanford’s approach to engineering education to that of MIT and describes his students as his legacy, reflecting on the “multiplier effect” that occurs when one trains students. Kailath concludes his interview by talking about his children, the rationale behind his charitable scholarship donations, and his life since retirement.
- Topic:
- Thomas Kailath, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, higher education, professors, universities and colleges--research, universities and colleges--faculty, and telecommunications
- Imprint:
- March 19, 2015 - May 14, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- Kailath, Thomas.
- Author:
- Kailath, Thomas and DiPaolo, Andy
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- In this oral history interview, Thomas Kailath, Stanford University’s Hitachi America Professor of Engineering, Emeritus, traces his path from the small town of Pune, India, to his appointment to the faculty of the Stanford Department of Electrical Engineering. He discusses his family background, his education in India and at MIT, and aspects of his varied research career in information theory, controls, signal processing, very-large-scale integration, and beyond. He reflects on his approach to working with graduate students, the academic environment at Stanford, and the interrelationship between teaching and research. Kailath begins the interview by speaking about his childhood in India, describing the state of Kerala where his parents were born, and explaining the Syrian Christian derivation of his first name. He describes his parents and the strong influence they had on him and his education at St. Vincent’s, a school founded and run by Jesuit missionaries, where he became intrigued by geometry and proofs. He talks about his college education--first at Fergusson College and then in the highly selective Bachelor of Engineering in Telecom program led by Chandrashekhar Aiya at the College of Engineering, Pune. Interestingly, the only textbook he recalls using was the fourth edition of Frederick Terman’s Electronic and Radio Engineering. Kailath relates the story of how he came to attend graduate school at MIT when Dr. Ganugapati Stephen Krishnayya, the Indian educational attaché in Washington, DC and a man his family knew from church, encouraged him to apply to graduate programs and carried his transcript and letters of recommendation to universities in the United States. After Kailath received a research assistantship at MIT, his father’s employer at Pocha Seeds helped him to secure the funding needed to travel there. Kailath describes the late 1950s and early 1960s at MIT as “the golden time” due to the post-Sputnik availability of funding, including block grants from the Joint Services Electronics Program, and a particularly talented group of faculty and graduate students interested in the new field of information theory. Kailath speaks of his advisor, Jack Wozencraft, the MIT Research Lab of Electronics, his thesis research on linear time-variant filters, and jobs at the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT and Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Kailath recounts details of his recruitment to Stanford in 1963 and discusses the Information Systems Lab. He credits then provost Frederick Terman with creating a great teaching and research environment at Stanford and describes Terman’s approach to developing “steeples of excellence”--strong departments that attracted academic stars who in turn attracted more stars. Kailath recalls some of the challenges that he and his wife, Sarah, encountered as a newly married couple with young children living far from their families in India, and he reflects on the growth of the Indian community in Silicon Valley since the 1960s. Asked about his efforts on India’s behalf, he relates a story about meeting with officials in India’s defense establishment while on sabbatical at the Indian Institute of Science and encouraging them to set up a system of funding similar to the block grants offered by the Joint Services Electronics Program. Kailath reflects on the relationship between academic research and private industry in Silicon Valley, noting that many of his students went on to start companies. He reflects on the importance of “bridging between disciplines” (or interdisciplinary research) and comments on the difficulties that young faculty members face in developing expertise in multiple disciplines. Kailath describes his approach to working with graduate students and credits his wide professional network for directing excellent students to study with him at Stanford. He compares Stanford’s approach to engineering education to that of MIT and describes his students as his legacy, reflecting on the “multiplier effect” that occurs when one trains students. Kailath concludes his interview by talking about his children, the rationale behind his charitable scholarship donations, and his life since retirement.
- Topic:
- Thomas Kailath, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, professors, engineering, electrical engineering, India, Silicon Valley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, higher education, and faculty
- Imprint:
- March 19, 2015 - May 14, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- Kruger, Charles H.
- Author:
- Kruger, Charles H. and Tracy, Allison
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- Charles H. Kruger is professor emeritus in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. Kruger is an internationally recognized researcher of physical gas dynamics, partially ionized plasmas, plasma chemistry, and plasma diagnostics. He is also highly regarded for his transformational leadership as an administrator, having spent half his Stanford career in senior administrative positions, including Vice Provost and Dean of Research and Graduate Policy (1993-2003). In the first interview, Kruger describes growing up in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, rebuilding a Model A Ford while in high school, and his early interests in mechanical engineering. He relates his undergraduate experiences at the University of Oklahoma and at MIT, where he gained laboratory experience and was awarded a fellowship from the National Science Foundation. Kruger recounts his decision to use the fellowship at the Imperial College of Science & Technology in London where he was exposed to the field of biology, built his first computer, and developed his interest in fluid mechanics and thermal dynamics. Kruger, explains his decision to pursue his PhD at MIT, his thesis on the axial-flow compressor in the free-molecule range, and his transition from being an assistant professor at MIT to working for Lockheed. Kruger relates the series of events that led him to join Stanford as an assistant professor in mechanical engineering in 1962. He depicts the state of the university and the Mechanical Engineering Department at the time and explains his research in magentohydrodynamics in the High Temperature Gasdynamics Laboratory. He goes on to discuss teaching and working with students from a variety of backgrounds and emphasizes the value in learning to tackle new problems in new ways. Kruger speaks about the issue of having defense research on campus and his own research on air pollution. In the next interview, Kruger talks about preparing the textbooks, Introduction to Physical Gas Dynamics with Walter G. Vincenti and Partially Ionized Gases with Morton Mitchner. He delves deeper into his inter-departmental collaborations, including his research with Richard Zare in the Chemistry Department. While serving as department chair of Mechanical Engineering from 1982 to 1988, he describes encouraging interaction between the divisions, dissolving the nuclear engineering program, and the evolution of the design division. Kruger also points to his involvement with air pollution as a discipline and experience on the hearing board of the Bay Area Air Pollution Control District. He explains how serving as senior associate dean of engineering led him to realize the importance of undergraduate teaching to the success of the university. Kruger alludes to the story of David Kelley, the founder of the D School, and his track to tenure at Stanford. He also briefly describes serving as chair of the Faculty Senate from 1990 to 1991 and the challenges he tackled, including the indirect cost crisis. In the third and final interview, Kruger speaks of becoming Dean of Research and Graduate Policy in 1993, encouraging undergraduate research, and promoting collaboration between departments with the Graduate Fellowship Program. He describes the change within the administration at the time, working with the Office of Technology Licensing, and managing issues regarding federal funding. He then delves into the early stages of the Bio-X program when he worked with John Hennessy and others to bolster interaction between the Medical School and other parts of the university. The James H. Clark Center was one of the products of their efforts. Kruger concludes his interview with a discussion of the future directions of training and education, his experience running Bio-X after becoming emeriti faculty, and the overall strengthening of Stanford.
- Topic:
- Charles H. Kruger, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, higher education, professors, interdisciplinary research, and federal funding
- Imprint:
- March 2, 2015 - April 1, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- Lewis, John W.
- Author:
- Lewis, John W. and Hanawalt, Carla
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- John W. Lewis, the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics, Emeritus, established some of the first study programs in contemporary Asian politics in the United States. He founded or co-founded centers at Cornell University and Stanford University, helped to draft foreign policy for the federal government, and built cooperative relationships with leaders and scholars in China, Korea, Russia, and Vietnam. Although now retired, he continues to be active, writing books and giving lectures. In this oral history interview, Lewis talks about his experiences working in a field that challenged deeply ingrained cultural and political beliefs. He describes what it was like to come to Stanford as an expert on the highly sensitive subject of China at the height of public unrest regarding the Vietnam War, and how that affected his relationships with both students and teachers. He recounts his recruitment to Stanford by J.E. Wallace Sterling, establishing the Center for East Asian Studies, the visit of the Chinese ping-pong team to Stanford in 1972, the climate of protest against the Vietnam War at Stanford, and the beginnings of the Center for International Strategic Arms Control (CISAC). Lewis also discusses his experiences as an educator, including his involvement in an interdisciplinary course on nuclear arms and disarmament and conducting simulations of arms control talks with students. He describes some of his foreign policy work for the U.S. State Department and the Department of Defense. He reviews the impact his work has had on relations between the United States and East Asia, the current state of the field, and his ongoing work as an author, lecturer, and researcher.
- Topic:
- John W. Lewis, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, Stanford University, higher education, professors, China--politics and government, China--study and teaching, Chinese studies, Ford Foundation, Henry Kissinger, David Mozingo, North Korea--politics and government, Wolfgang Panofsky, Stanford University--Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University--Center for East Asian Studies, Vietnam War, Vietnam War--protest movements--United States, nuclear arms control, G. William Skinner, United States--foreign relations--China, United States--foreign relations--North Korea, Litai Xue, and Yinhe incident
- Imprint:
- May 12, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- McDevitt, Hugh O.
- Author:
- McDevitt, Hugh O. and Smuga-Otto, Kim
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- Hugh O. McDevitt is Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and of Medicine, Emeritus known for his work on major histocompatibility complex (MHC) and its role in various autoimmune diseases. McDevitt discusses his critical research in proving the genetic basis for our bodies’ ability to recognize and defend against pathogens, both from a scientific and personal perspective. He begins the interview by describing his early life and how his father, a surgeon, influenced his decision to pursue medicine. He discusses his undergraduate career in the late 1940s at Stanford University, described by others as a “good solid provincial university,” and his undergraduate work in Raymond Barrett’s genetics lab where he mapped the location of a fungus gene involved in metabolism. While the results of this research were not groundbreaking, he stresses the importance of this technique to his later immunology research. Beyond his academic experiences, he speaks about his student life, the jobs he took to help cover his tuition and board, and the death of his father. McDevitt goes on to discuss his medical education and training at Harvard Medical School, his internship at Bellevue Hospital in New York—during which he rode the “home care ambulance” all over the city—and his military service in Japan. He recounts his research in Albert Coons’s lab at Harvard and his decision to come to Stanford School of Medicine as a faculty member in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology. McDevitt explains how, prior to Stanford, he had observed a difference in the immune system’s reaction to a synthetic peptide between two mice strains. He goes into detail about how, at Stanford, he took a genetic approach to solving this problem and, through selective and extensive breeding, was able to identify the genes (later called the major histocompatibility complex) responsible for the strains’ different reactions. McDevitt gives a technical account of this research, the technical constraints of the day, and the research’s effects. He goes on to talk about setting up and running his lab and his experiences teaching, practicing medicine, and chairing his department. At the end of the interview he gives his perspective of how Stanford changed from a “solid provincial regional university” to a “first-class university.”
- Topic:
- Hugh O. McDevitt, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, higher education, professors, antibody research, and Wallace Sterling
- Imprint:
- July 23, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- Peters, P. Stanley.
- Author:
- Peters, P. Stanley and Tobey, Karen
- Description:
- P. Stanley Peters, Director Emeritus of the Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI) and a Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, is known for his work in the logical analysis of meaning in natural languages and computational linguistics. In the first interview, Peters discusses his career trajectory beginning with his undergraduate studies in mathematics and his graduate study of linguistics with Noam Chomsky at MIT. He reflects upon his path to becoming a professor at the University of Texas at Austin and describes how his mathematical background allowed him to create a more scientific approach to research in linguistics. He describes a formative time at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey and recounts his decision to move to Stanford after a term as a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences where he made fruitful connections that ultimately resulted in the formation of CSLI. Peters discusses the growth of the Department of Linguistics at Stanford and his time as chair of the department and comments on Stanford’s approach to its faculty and students, its willingness to engage with industry, and the support the university gives to interdisciplinary research. He explains some of his research contributions including work on presupposition, quantifiers, and the formal properties of Chomsky’s transformational grammars. He also discusses his research on electronic tutors, or computers than can converse with humans, including work with the Office of Naval Research to develop electronic tutors that could teach ship handling. He converses about developments in machine learning that have led to programs such as Google Translate and Siri. In the second interview, Professor Peters elaborates on the evolution and impact of CSLI, and discusses the creation of the interdisciplinary Symbolic Systems major at Stanford, which has become popular with students interested in the intersections of cognitive science, computer technology, math, and linguistics. He also discusses his work on the Committee for Technology and Learning, which the university convened to develop Stanford’s strategy for online learning. He talks about his family, his love of music and playing the organ, and his hobby of aerobatic flying, which he began to learn in his forties when he got his pilot’s license. He concludes the interview by offering advice to young people who are just beginning their careers, espousing the value of a liberal arts education rather than a strictly defined career goal at too early an age. He talks about the importance of teamwork, flexibility, doing something one loves, and having broad rather than narrowly focused interests.
- Topic:
- P. Stanley Peters, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, higher education, professors, Stanford University--Department of Linguistics, Stanford University--Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University--Symbolic Systems Program, semantics, semantics--mathematical models, computational linguistics, linguists--interviews, linguistics--history--20th century, interdisciplinary research, System Development Foundation (Palo Alto, and Calif.)
- Imprint:
- December 3, 2015 - January 11, 2016
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- Reaven, Gerald M.
- Author:
- Reaven, Gerald M. and Smuga-Otto, Kim
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- Gerald M. Reaven is a Professor of Medicine, Emeritus at the Stanford University School of Medicine. His groundbreaking research helped demonstrate that insulin resistance could lead to type 2 diabetes. The first part of the interview begins with Reaven’s decision to attend the University of Chicago for his undergraduate and medical degrees and what drew him to research. He recounts how the military’s use of the draft to recruit doctors influenced his decision to take a research fellowship at Stanford and recalls his, and his family’s, experiences when he was stationed in Germany. He contrasts his impressions of Stanford’s hospital (then located in San Francisco) with the University of Chicago’s medical program and explains why he chose to do his residency at the University of Michigan. However, the change in direction of the Stanford medical school program -- both in the five year curriculum for students and the recruitment of full time professors to teach and see patients -- and the relocation of the hospital drew him back. He reminisces on the atmosphere at Stanford during this time as well as how he set up his lab and collaborated with fellow Stanford professor, Charles Lucas. Reaven discusses what led him to his experiments that proved type II diabetes was due to insulin insensitivity, as opposed to lack of insulin in the blood, and how his research progressed. He recalls how he chose the topic of his famous Banting Lecture and the resulting awareness into the link between insulin insensitivity and increased risk of the individual to strokes and heart attacks. The second interview focuses on Reaven’s administration experience with several divisions within the medical school and how he came to be the director of the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center at the VA hospital, where he was able to implement “unconventional medical training.” He discusses his wife’s academic career (Eve Reaven holds a PhD in anatomy and worked as a professor at Stanford) and how they balanced careers and family. Reaven also recounts his work with committees to promote gender equality in medical admissions and tenure appointments, and what Stanford was like in the 1960s.
- Topic:
- Gerald M. Reaven, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, higher education, professors, Halsted Holman, and John Farquhar
- Imprint:
- October 2, 2015 - October 7, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Title:
- The Stanford School of Medicine’s Move from San Francisco to the Stanford Campus: Rationale, Controversies, and Impacts.
- Author:
- Abrams, Herbert L., Berg, Paul, Mark, James B. D., Schrier, Stanley L., and Sunshine, Philip
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- In this oral history, five distinguished professors at the Stanford University School of Medicine--Hebert L. Abrams, Paul Berg, James B. D. Mark, Stanley L. Schrier, and Philip Sunshine--discussed the Medical School’s move from San Francisco to the Stanford campus in 1959 and its implications. They described the new format for medical education envisioned by the university president and the Board of Trustees, the impact of the integration of the teaching and clinical operations on the Stanford campus, and how Stanford gained a reputation for innovative, high-quality medical care. The panelists discussed the forces behind this move: the Flexner Report on medical education in the United States and Canada and the university’s assessment of its program’s condition after World War II. They also talked about the challenges the Medical School faced as a result of the move, including the creation of an adequate patient base to ensure the success of the medical school and hospital (which occasioned hostility from local physicians, hospitals and clinics) and the need to recruit faculty, physicians, and researchers. In the course of the discussion, the panelists also addressed differences among their departments regarding the sharing of research resources.
- Topic:
- Herbert L. Abrams, Paul Berg, James B. D. Mark, Stanley L. Schrier, Philip Sunshine, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, higher education, professors, Stanford Lane Hospital, Henry Kaplan, Palo Alto Medical Foundation, and San Francisco General Hospital
- Imprint:
- February 11, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
- Exhibit Tags:
- video
- Title:
- White, Robert L.
- Author:
- White, Robert L. and Marine-Street, Natalie J.
- Corporate Author:
- Stanford Historical Society
- Description:
- Robert L. White, the William E. Ayer Professor of Electrical Engineering and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Emeritus, chaired the Stanford Department of Electrical Engineering from 1981 to 1986. He is an expert on the medical electronics of the artificial ear, magnetic materials, and the atomic origins of magnetic properties. In this two-part oral history, he reminisces about his childhood in Plainfield, New Jersey and offers memories of his public school education and his parents and siblings. He also discusses his experience at naval radio training school during World War II and his undergraduate education at Columbia College, which he pursued with the help of scholarships and the G.I. Bill. White recalls his experience at graduate school at Columbia University where his advisor was physicist Charles H. Townes. He describes Townes’s personality, his system for training graduate students, and the intense work regimen of graduate school. White also describes his thesis on microwave spectroscopy and gases and the apparatus on which he performed his research. White explains how he met his future wife, Phyllis Arlt, when they were both in high school and how their relationship evolved while he was studying at Columbia. White recounts the positive post-WWII conception of physicists and the rich job market available to physics PhDs. He discusses his recruitment by Hughes Research Laboratories in southern California, the management environment there, his research on magnetic materials, and the ironic consequences of another scientist’s successful research on the material, ruby. White also details his move to the laboratories of General Telephone & Electronics (GTE) in Palo Alto. He recounts his team’s discovery of a red phosphor useful in color television technology and the difficulties the company encountered in having two laboratories--one in Bayside, New York and the other in Palo Alto, California. White relates his decision to leave industrial research for academia and the factors that influenced his decision to join Stanford University’s School of Engineering, including his interaction with Fredrick Emmons Terman. He describes the growth and character of the Electrical Engineering Department, the process of obtaining grant funding, the benefits of academia for family life, and a memorable sabbatical at Oxford University. White discusses the shift in his research agenda around 1970 when he began to work on the development of a cochlear prosthesis or cochlear implant for the deaf. He describes the engineering challenges involved, the way his group’s device worked, and interactions with other groups doing similar research. He also recounts the resistance to his work on cochlear implants from some segments of the deaf community. Reflecting on his chairmanship of the department, White describes the factors he looked for when admitting graduate students, how faculty recruitment worked, the changing student population, and some of the memorable faculty and alumni of the department, including John Hennessy, James H. Clark, and William Shockley. White describes teaching quantum mechanics to engineers and his approach to mentoring engineering graduate students. He also discusses the impact that the founding of the Integrated Circuits Laboratory had on the department and describes how he handled the situation when Vietnam War protestors visited the department. White comments on the time he spent as director of the Exploratorium, an interactive science museum in San Francisco, and he describes his involvement with the early venture capital industry in Silicon Valley as an investor in and consultant for the Mayfield Fund. He concludes the oral history with a description of what his company, MagArray, Inc., is working to accomplish and some reflections on his career at Stanford.
- Topic:
- Robert L. White, Stanford Historical Society, oral histories, interviews, higher education, professors, Stanford University--Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University--Department of Materials Science and Engineering, biomedical engineering, cochlear implants, medical electronics, engineering--history--United States, engineering--Study and teaching, Exploratorium, General Telephone and Electronics Corporation, Hughes Aircraft Company--Research Laboratories, lasers, magnetics, masers, rare earth metals, Charles H. Townes, and venture capital
- Imprint:
- September 24, 2015 - September 29, 2015
- Collection:
- Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2012
