Nifty Fifty
Fifty of San Diego’s most inspiring scientists will give classroom assemblies at local high schools to inspire students with the multitude of opportunities in science and encourage them to engage in festival activities.
When Dr. Fran Berman goes to work at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), she walks down a hall with some of the coolest science pictures around: Images from computer simulations of the Universe after the Big Bang to seismic waves of the biggest earthquakes to detailed images of the brain. All these images are from simulations on SDSC’s computers (among the world’s fastest) which whip through tens of trillions of math calculations every second, or store more than 10 times the information in the Library of Congress.
As the top executive of SDSC, Berman is in charge of a “national treasure” and directs 300 scientists, engineers, technologists, researchers, and educators who push the envelope to make science happen every day. SDSC staff do everything from creating a wireless network in the back country of San Diego used by Cal Fire during emergencies, to executing large-scale simulations helping to find new drugs for Parkinson’s disease.
These days, she is a leading light to plot a course for America’s “cyber-infrastructure” – the coordination of information technologies (computers, data, scientific instruments, etc.) to solve some of the most challenging problems in chemistry, physics, geosciences, engineering, and other disciplines. Berman works extensively with universities, government agencies, and global partners to create large-scale cyberinfrastructure that accelerates new discoveries for science and society.
Berman is also a pioneer in “Grid computing” which allows people to link computers in different places to work together on the same problem. Graduates from Berman’s computer science lab have some of the coolest jobs around, from Lawrence Livermore National Lab to Google
She doesn’t spend all her time in “cyber-space” though. Berman has hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon (and back out …) and hangs out with her college-age kids – a math and physics major at UCSD and a choreography major who lives in Chicago. Next up will be a “rim to rim” hike from the North Grand Canyon to the South.
For more information CLICK HERE
go to topShu Chien remembers 1949 well.
He was 16 years old and just beginning as a pre-medicine student in Beijing, China .It was a tumultuous time in China – the country was immersed in a bloody civil war. When the Communist revolutionary army began shelling Beijing that year, the government sent aircraft to evacuate top scholars.
Shu was summoned home from his university one day and given just minutes to pack his things before boarding a plane that would quickly fly him and his family to Taiwan.
Later, "The intellectuals who stayed in China would be branded criminals during the culture revolution", Shu recalls.
Fast forward to the present. At 76, Shu enjoys the eminence of a scientist truly at the top of his game. His groundbreaking work in applying engineering concepts to biological functions has made him a pioneer in the development of modern-day bioengineering. In addition, he continues to teach and inspire his university students while remaining a leader and motivating force in his field. "I have no intention of slowing down", says the scientist with a smile. "Retirement is not in my immediate plan".
Shu grew up in Shanghai, the middle son of a chemistry professor who would become one of the top intellectuals in Taiwan. “My parents taught us to strive for the greater good in life,” he says.
Torn between practicing medicine (after earning his medical degree from a top university in Taiwan) and becoming a research scientist. He ultimately chose research because "it allowed me to be more innovative."
Specifically, Shu's work involves investigating how the mechanical forces of blood flow affect the cardiovascular system. His research is also providing insight into the spread of cancer cells. And at the molecular level, Chien is discovering how mechanical forces affect genes and influence them to produce proteins that modify cell growth, migration or cell fate (including death), all key factors in disease.
Known for his kind, generous nature, he returned to Taiwan in 1987-88to help shape its direction in biological science and research.
Shu is one of only two individuals who is a member of all three U.S. National Academies and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he is the only scientist who has served as Presidents of the two large umbrella scientific organizations: Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.
Says one colleague: He's a pillar in his field and many people here seek his counsel. "When you don't know exactly what to do, you can go to Shu. You'll walk away always knowing exactly what to do and feeling that you are a little bit wiser."
For more details, CLICK HERE
go to topNamed "Woman of the Year" by San Diego Magazine, Gail Naughton is the Dean of the College of Business Administration at San Diego State University.
Holding an impressive 90 patents, Naughton was the first woman to receive the National Inventor of the Year Award by the Intellectual Property Owners Association.
While pursuing post-doctoral studies, Gail made her first in what would become a long list of significant discoveries in the emerging field of tissue engineering. But when she submitted the results to a very large science publication, she received a letter from the reviewer, saying, "this article would be a disservice to dermatology." Through continued persistence, the article was eventually accepted and became the foundation of Advanced Tissue Sciences, a leading San Diego biotechnology company. The field of tissue engineering has transformed many areas of medicine, particularly reconstructive surgery and burn treatment. Techniques developed by early pioneers, such as Gail, have helped thousands of patients worldwide have less painful, more powerful treatment options.
"Traditional science does not train its students into the practicalities of business and management. We need high powered scientists who understand how to manage people– scientists who can see beyond the physical science and evaluate projects based on business strategies that will propel their products into the market."
Her endless dedication to the local community makes her a role model to us all.
For more information CLICK HERE.
go to topConsidered to be a founding father of the biotechnology industry, Ivor is best known as the lead entrepreneur behind San Diego's first biotech company, Hybritech. He was early to recognize that monoclonal antibodies, just recently invented, would be well-suited to use as tests and therapies for cancer. Big pharmaceutical companies turned a cold shoulder to Royston's entreaties, so he decided to do it himself. Hybritech was a roaring success and was bought by Eli Lilly for about $400 million.
Royston's scientific specialty is immunology. He has long believed that cancer patients can overcome the disease if their immune systems are trained to recognize cancer. His impatience with obstacles for improved treatments for cancer led him to found the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center.
Ivor was born in Retford, England in 1945, emigrated to the United States in 1954 and became a naturalized American citizen.
Royston began a tentative additional career of sorts in Hollywood. He wrote a screenplay, titled "The Cure", about a researcher who discovers a cure for cancer. The catch is that other people must be killed to produce this wonder drug. Royston also made a movie called "Soultaker", about two teen-agers who "die" but try to escape the Grim Reaper. The reviews were not good. One review called it a "below sewer-level film".
Luckily for the biotech community and cancer patients, Royston kept his day job.
For more information CLICK HERE.
go to topIvan Schuller is one of the 100 most-read physicists worldwide (out of 500,000). Born in Transylvania (!), lived long periods of time in Israel and Chile, speaks 7 languages, has friends all over the world; a "typical" American. Solid State Physics and Nanoscience are his passions.
So why is everybody laughing at him? In addition to being a world-renowned prize winning, physicist at UCSD, he can often be seen playing a wacky version of himself on stage and TV. He believes people learn better and faster when humor is involved. He says "Being a physicist is as much fun, but way easier than being an actor."
Ivan has really stuck it with the production of "When Things Get Small." It’s a wacky, irreverent romp about his real-life quest to create the smallest magnet ever known or, in technical terms, to overcome the super paramagnetic limit to create sub-domain size magnets – or magnetic nanodots. (Yikes!)
Anyone who knows Ivan would not hesitate to say he’s – well - at the very least, a singular individual. Most would call him Inspired. And others would simply call him a Wild Man.
His interests are as diverse as cave diving, writing plays and producing critically acclaimed scientific movies. Does he ever sleep ?
For more information CLICK HERE.
go to topAs a recurring mid-wife to the birth of the national information infrastructure (the Internet, the Web, and the emerging Grid), Larry Smarr is currently the founding director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Cal IT2) at UCSD.
An astrophysicist by training, Larry has long been a pioneer in the prototyping of a national information infrastructure to support academic research, governmental functions, and industrial competitiveness.
Larry has an impressive track record when it comes to creating as well as forecasting the next paradigm in computation. His accomplishments include the development of the first national supercomputer center, from which came the first graphical Web browser (Mosaic), the browser software that detonated the explosive growth of the Web and the most popular Web server: httpd (now Apache).
He passionately believes information technologies and telecommunications can dramatically improve California's future. He imagines bridges that are covered with a fabric of computerized sensors that will automatically tell engineers where earthquake damage has occurred or a world in which intelligent buildings whisper directions to visitors on the way to their destinations.
Dr. Smarr is a tireless champion of the revolutionary nature of the Information Age. His views have been quoted in Science, the New York Times, the Lehrer NewsHour , the Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Business Week, Red Herring, Wired, and Boing Boing.
His next major conquest, OptIPuter, is to develop a blueprint of the network of the future. By combining optical networks, super-computing and grid technologies, Smarr believes that OptIPuter will be the model for a SuperInternet.
His message is his mantra, "A gigabit or bust."
For more information CLICK HERE.
go to top