Explorers

Like many young readers before him, Robert Ballard dreamed of becoming an undersea explorer after reading of Jules Verne's 20,0000 Leagues Under the Sea. Unlike most of Verne's readers, Ballard went on to realize his dream.

For more than ten years, Ballard spent four months of every year at sea, and much of that time miles of feet below the water's surface, exploring the uncharted mountain ranges of the ocean floor. While his discoveries of undersea volcanoes and chemosynthetic life in the hydrothermal vents off the Galˆ°pagos islands have earned him a place in the history of science, his expeditions to discover the wrecks of such famous lost ships as the Titanic, the Lusitania and the Bismarck also earned him a place in the headlines.

His discoveries, and the amazing vehicles he has built to perform his explorations, are even more remarkable than the fanciful adventures of Jules Verne's Captain Nemo.

Ballard addressed the student delegates and answered their questions at the 1990 Achievement Summit in Chicago.

Nobel Laureate, Thomas Cech, grew up in Iowa City, Iowa. In 1966, he entered Grinnell College where he obtained a B.A. in 1970. In 1975, Cech completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and in the same year, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he engaged in postdoctoral research.

In 1978, he obtained his first faculty position at the University of Colorado where he lectured undergraduate students in chemistry and biochemistry, and where he remains on the faculty, currently as Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. In 2000, Dr. Cech succeeded Purnell

Choppin as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland. He also continues to head his world-renowned biochemistry laboratory, the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Dr. Cech continues to teach undergraduate chemistry at CU-Boulder. On April 1, 2008, Dr Cech announced that he will step down as the president of HHMI, to return to teaching and research, in spring 2009.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910 - 1995) was an Indian-born American astrophysicist who, with William A. Fowler, won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics for key discoveries that led to the currently accepted theory on the later evolutionary stages of massive stars. Chandrasekhar was the nephew of Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930.

Chandrasekhar served on the University of Chicago faculty from 1937 until his death in 1995 at the age of 84. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1953.

Donald Glaser is a pioneering American physicist and neurobiologist and, for more than 50 years, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He was a brilliant young physicist at the University of Michigan, who became frustrated when he tried to observe the tracks of atom particles. Glaser experimented with using superheated liquid in a glass chamber, and found that strange particles would leave a track of bubbles as they passed through the liquid, and their tracks could be photographed. His new invention called the "bubble chamber" was ideal for use with high-energy accelerators and paved the way for many important discoveries. Glaser won a Nobel Prize for Physics for it at the age of 34. Glaser then switched his interests from the basic particles of matter to fundamental molecules of life in 1962. He worked in UC Berkeley's Virus Lab doing experiments with bacteria and mammalian cells and studied the development of cancer cells. As with the bubble chamber, he used his experience designing equipment to improve the experimental process. In 1971, he co-founded Cetus Corporation and became the Chairman of its Science Advisory Board. The company founders felt that the knowledge scientists had gained about DNA had not yet been applied to solve real problems. The company did genetic engineering and became the world's first biotechnology company. Professor Glaser spoke to the student delegates and answered their questions at the 1989 Achievement Summit in San Francisco about his research in molecular biology and neuroscience.

Paul Berg is Professor Emeritus at Stanford University's School of Medicine and a respected biochemist and geneticist. He is most renowned for his pioneering work involving recombinant DNA, the process of inserting DNA from another species into a molecule, leading to the development of modern genetic engineering. After developing the technique, Berg used it for his studies of viral chromosomes. He has not only been a trailblazer in genetics, but has also helped shape policies for dealing with its possible dangers. His contributions to the biological sciences over the past half-century have earned him the admiration of his colleagues and students, and many honors, including the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award, the National Medal of Science, and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Professor Berg addressed the student delegates at the 1989 Achievement Summit in San Francisco.

Allan C. Wilson (October 18, 1934 - July 21, 1991) was a pioneer in the use of molecular approaches to understand evolutionary change and revolutionized the study of human evolution. He was one of the most controversial figures in post-war biology and created one of the most provocative theories about man's origins. He argued that the origins of the human species could be seen through what he termed a "molecular clock."" This was a way of dating, not from fossils, but from the genetic mutations that had accumulated since they parted from a common ancestor. The molecular clock estimated the length of time from divergence, given a certain rate. Wilson followed an international assortment of genes and picked up a trail of DNA that led to a single woman from we all descended a 200,000-year-old African woman who left a legacy of resilient genes that are carried by all mankind. It was a startling discovery that re-shaped anthropology and evolutionary theory. Scientists called her Eve, but reluctantly; she was not the only woman on earth but she was the most fruitful. Her genes seemed to be in all humans living; 10 billion blood relatives. Eve was, by one rough estimate, your 10,000th great-grandmother. Professor Wilson addressed the students at the Academy's Achievement Summit in 1988. In 1991, he died at the age of 56 years while undergoing treatment for leukemia.

Edward O. Wilson's childhood fascination with insects and other living things matured into an intellectual passion that fired one of the greatest careers in modern science. Wilson made his first major entomological discovery at age 13. By the time he completed graduate school he was already winning recognition as the world's foremost authority on ants. From his base at Harvard University, he traveled the world, collecting rare specimens and gaining unprecedented insight into the evolution and behavior of these complex creatures.

Wilson pioneered the study of chemical communication among animals and devised the theory of island biogeography that informs conservation practice to this day. His landmark studies of the social insects became a cornerstone of the modern science of sociobiology, the systematic study of the biological basis of social behavior. In his 1975 book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Wilson applied this discipline to the behavior of all species. His observations on the biological origins of human nature and society stirred a maelstrom of debate. Wilson endured bitter personal attacks from critics, many of whom grossly misinterpreted his work, but within a few years, his ideas had won widespread acceptance throughout the scientific community.

A graceful and lucid writer, Wilson holds the distinction -- especially rare for a scientist -- of winning two Pulitzer Prizes, awarded for On Human Nature and the comprehensive work, The Ants. Over the course of his career, Wilson has written over 20 books and discovered hundreds of new species. His idea have had an immeasurable influence on our understanding of life, nature and society. He remains an outspoken advocate for conservation and biodiversity, fighting to preserve the wondrous variety of the natural world.

James Van Allen (1914 - 2006) was a pathbreaking astrophysicist best known for his work in the development of research satellite technology and the discovery of the bands of radiation that circle the Earth. Born in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, he graduated from Iowa Wesleyan College and received his Ph.D. in nuclear physics from the University of Iowa in 1939. He began his professional career with the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. After U.S. entry into World War II, he joined the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University where he helped develop rugged vacuum tubes and proximity fuses for the armed forces. In 1942, he joined the Navy, serving in the South Pacific , where he completed the development of the proximity fuse. After the war, he returned to Johns Hopkins University, experimenting with V-2 rockets captured from the Germans. When the Soviets launched the first manmade satellite, Sputnik, the U.S. accelerated its own space program. Van Allen's Explorer spacecraft was selected for deployment by the newly formed NASA. In 1958, Explorer 1 returned unprecedented data about fields of radiation circling the Earth. The discovery of the Van Allen Radiation Belt, as it came to be called in the press, made James Van Allen into a national figure, the public face of American astrophysics. In the decades that followed, Van Allen continued his involvement in the space program, participating in the first four Explorer probes, the Pioneer and Mariner missions, and the orbiting geophysical observatory. He headed the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Iowa from 1951 until his retirement in 1985. This podcast was recorded during the Academy of Achievement's 1988 Summit in Nashville, Tennessee.

George Schaller is a senior conservationist at the Wildlife Conservation Society in the Bronx, New York. He is a legendary zoologist, naturalist, conservationist, and best-selling author, who is recognized as the world's pre-eminent field biologist, studying wildlife throughout Africa, Asia and South America. Schaller has spent years in the most remote and forbidding places on earth studying the natural history of endangered animals fighting for their survival. He has encountered tigers in the wilds of India, mountain gorillas and lions in Africa, jaguars in the swamps of Brazil, and snow leopards in the Himalayas. His splendid writings are presented with style and stunning imagery, including "The Serengeti Lion" (which received the National Book Award) and "The Mountain Gorilla" (the first book that conveyed to the general public the profound intelligence and gentleness of gorillas in the wild). Schaller has helped establish more than 20 parks or animal reserves around the world, including Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Chang Tang Nature Reserve. He is the recipient of the National Geographic Society's Lifetime Achievement Award and the World Wildlife Fund's Gold Medal.

Francis H.C. Crick (1916-2004) was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1962, along with James D. Watson for their discovery of the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule, the building block of life. Acclaimed as their discovery was at the time, it has only grown in significance with the further development of molecular biology, and is now regarded as one of the most fundamental discoveries in the history of science. Crick was born in Northampton, England and graduated from the University of London, where he studied physics and mathematics. He served as a research scientist with the British Admiralty during World War II, and first took up the study of biology after the war. From 1947 until 1976, he worked for the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England. He conducted his doctoral research at the Cavendish Laboratory of Cambridge University, where James Watson and he made their historic discovery in 1953. From 1976 until his death, Dr. Crick carried on his research at the Salk Institute in San Diego, California and was a professor at the University of California, San Diego. After pioneering the fundamentals of molecular biology, his interests turned to neuroscience; his last years were devoted to exploring the biological basis of consciousness.