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Charles A. Whitney, Ph.D. is Professor emeritus
of astronomy at Harvard University and a retired Senior Scientist
at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. He received an S.B.
in physics from MIT in 1951 and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Harvard
in 1956. During the early Sputnik days, he served as chief of
computations of the Satellite Tracking Program, Center for Astrophysics.
His research during the next two decades focused on the theory
and observation of stellar variations and the structure of stellar
atmospheres. One of his books, Discovery of Our Galaxy, was
nominated for the National Book Award in 1962. In 1971, he received
a Solomon R. Guggenheim Fellowship for study in the history of
astronomy.
Professor Whitney has written on the astronomy of Vincent van
Gogh's skyscapes, and has been active in developing and evaluating
software for instruction in physics and astronomy. He served on
the National Scientific Advisory Board of Children's Television
Workshop Public Television series, 3-2-1 Contact, and on
the Science Advisory Committee of Project STAR. He is editor of
the Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers.
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Sallie Baliunas, Ph.D. is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics. She is Deputy Director and Director of
Science Programs at Mount Wilson Observatory; she also serves
as Senior Scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington,
D.C., and chairs the Institute's Science Advisory Board. She is
also Adjunct Professor at Tennessee State University.
Dr. Baliunas's research interests include solar variability and
other factors in climate change, magnetohydrodynamics of the sun
and sunlike stars, exoplanets, and the use of laser electro-optics
to correct turbulence in the earth's atmosphere that blurs astronomical
images. She has written over 200 scientific research articles,
and is a contributing editor to the World Climate Report
and an editor for New Astronomy. Her awards include the
Newton-Lacy-Pierce Prize of the American Astronomical Society,
the Petr Beckmann Award for Scientific Freedom, and the Bok Prize
from Harvard University.
Dr. Baliunas received her Ph.D. degree in Astrophysics from Harvard
University. In 1991 she was profiled by Discover magazine
as one of America's outstanding women scientists. In addition
to appearing in "Science in Focus: Force and Motion,"
Dr. Baliunas is the science advisor for "Gene Roddenberry's
Earth: Final Conflict," the sci-fi television series launched
in 1997.
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William G. Gardner, Ph.D. is an expert in acoustics
and sound engineering. He received a B.S. degree in Computer Science
and Engineering from MIT in 1982, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in
Media Arts and Sciences from MIT in 1992 and 1997. From 1984 to
1990 he worked at Kurzweil Music Systems developing software and
signal processing algorithms for electronic musical instruments.
As a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab, he researched spatial
audio, reverberation, sound synthesis, real-time signal processing,
and psychoacoustics, and completed a dissertation on the topic
of 3-D audio using loudspeakers. He was awarded a Motorola Fellowship
at the Media Lab, and was recipient of the 1997 Audio Engineering
Society Publications Award.
In 1997, Dr. Gardner founded Wave Arts, Inc. (Arlington, Massachusetts)
a company whose objective is to develop and sell audio processing
software and related technology. He is a member of the Audio Engineering
Society and the Acoustical Society of America.
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Les Kaufman, Ph.D. is an evolutionary ecologist at Boston
University, where he is Associate Professor and undergraduate
coordinator for the B.U. Marine Program. In his own research,
Dr. Kaufman studies how biological diversity evolves, the ecology
of how species coexist, and the ways in which people's activities
harm or eliminate living species. He likes to do basic research
that has direct applications to environmental conservation.
Dr. Kaufman is particularly fascinated with fish species in the
wild, calling for an odd combination of skills in ecology, mathematics,
physics, scuba diving, and wilderness survival. His current projects
deal with fish communities and fisheries restoration in East African
great lakes, the Gulf of Maine, Caribbean coral reefs, and California
kelp reefs. In 1990 he was named Pew Scholar in Conservation and
the Environment for this work. Dr. Kaufman is also an amateur
astronomer and teaches astronomy as a hobby.
He has been active in public television and informal science education
for more than 20 years, including an 11-year stint at The New
England Aquarium in Boston, first as Curator of Education and
later as Director of Research. He continues with the Aquarium
as a Research Scholar.
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Philip Morrison, Ph.D. is a theoretical astrophysicist
who has served on the physics faculties of Cornell University
(1946-64) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1964-present)
where he is now Institute Professor, Emeritus. He received
his Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1940 from the University of
California, Berkeley, as a student of J. Robert Oppenheimer, and
during World War II he worked on the Manhattan Project. He has
numerous research publications in physics and astronomy.
Dr. Morrison has a special interest in the understanding, both
formal and informal, of science. He is the author of physics textbooks
for high school, college, and graduate students, and, with his
wife Phylis, has written book reviews and columns for Scientific
American since 1964. He has appeared frequently on the BBC
(beginning with the 1961 show, "Fabric of the Atom"),
"Nova," and the acclaimed PBS miniseries, "The
Ring of Truth," as well as on commercial television. Dr.
Morrison has also co-authored books on United States military
policy and on world problems of the 21st century, and has written
and spoken widely in favor of nuclear disarmament. He has taught
overseas in the United Kingdom, West and South Africa, and India.
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Jaci VanHeest, Ph.D. has contributed a wide variety of
research to sports science, including studies of elite child athletes;
training and over-training in female athletes; the cellular mechanisms
of obesity, nutrition, and body weight regulation; and exercise
physiology. Dr. VanHeest is Assistant Professor in the department
of Kinesiology at the University of Connecticut and has taught
and researched at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center,
the University of Cincinnati, and the University of Toronto. Other
primary areas of her research include hormonal and metabolic factors
increasing children's risk for obesity, the role of pregnancy
as a risk factor for obesity, and the metabolic impact of exercise
during pregnancy.
Dr. VanHeest received her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Michigan
State University in Exercise Physiology/Exercise Endocrinology.
She was director of Exercise Physiology at the International Center
for Aquatics Research, where she saw her role as "using science
to help athletes win medals." She also served as the Director
of Physiology for USA Swimming at the Olympic Training Center
in Colorado Springs.
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Peter Weyand, Ph.D. is a physiologist and biomechanist
who specializes in animal locomotion, particularly in relating
muscle function to metabolic energy expenditure and performance.
An expert in the science of running, his interests involve muscles
and movement, making energy a central theme throughout his research
career. Dr. Weyand is the Research Director at Harvard University's
Concord Field Station, a large animal facility specializing in
animal locomotion, and a Senior Research Fellow at the US Army's
Research Institute for Environmental Medicine. He teaches an undergraduate
biology class at Harvard on "Muscles, Metabolism and Movement"
(reluctantly changed from its former title, "See Spot Run.")
He is the recipient of Harvard's Joseph E. Levenson Award for
excellence in undergraduate teaching.
Dr. Weyand received his Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology from the
University of Georgia in 1992. He began running competitively
at age 16, and has run about 60,000 lifetime miles, expending
about 6,000,000 kilocalories of chemical energy. When he's not
running animals on treadmills, he spends a lot of time encouraging
people to exercise, usually vigorously.
Content Advisors
Paul Hickman worked as an engineer and taught high school
physics in Cold Spring Harbor, New York and Belmont, Massachusetts.
He is the Director of Northeastern University’s Center for
the Enhancement of Science and Mathematics Education (CESAME),
and helps teachers to advance K-12 educational reform. He received
the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science Teaching, the
Tandy Technology Scholars Award, and the American Association
of Physics Teachers’ Award for Excellence in Pre-College
Physics Education. Hickman has been involved with several national
programs to improve science teaching and learning, has written
for numerous professional journals, and has given talks and workshops
for teachers nationwide. He received his B.S. in physics from
Manhattan College and his M.S. from Long Island University.
Jennifer
Bond Hickman, Ed.D., taught physics and astronomy at the Pomfret
School in Connecticut, at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts,
and most recently at Boston University Academy, where she also
served as head of school. Dr. Hickman has served on the boards
of several physics and astronomy organizations and is currently
on the board of Boston’s Hayden Planetarium. She has worked
on numerous national curriculum development projects in science
and has given talks and workshops around the country. Dr. Hickman
is a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science
Teaching and the Tandy Technology Scholars Award, and is the author
of Problem-Solving Exercises in Physics. She received her
B.A. in physics and astronomy from Wellesley College, her M.S.
from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and her Ed.D. and MBA from
Boston University.
Ari W. Epstein, Ph.D. is a scientist
and educator who has broad experience communicating science to
the public in a variety of media. From 1999 to 2001 he was Editor
of Scientific American Explorations, a new science magazine
for families. He has also worked as a Visiting Assistant Professor
in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Bowdoin College
(1996-99), as a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT (1995-96), and as
a member of the Board of Editors of Scientific American magazine
(1984-1988). Since 1995 Epstein has been a Visiting Scholar at
the New England Aquarium, where he has led the development teams
for several special interactive exhibits, assisted in the development
of a variety of other programs and exhibits, and served as a content
consultant and on-camera guest for the "High Seas" and
"World of Water" television series, broadcast live to
elementary schools across the U.S. Epstein holds a Ph.D. in Physical
Oceanography awarded jointly by the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
(WHOI), and an A.B. in History and Science (with an emphasis on
the history and philosophy of modern physics) from Harvard College.
He is also an alumnus of Sea Semester, a three-month, intensive
program in oceanography and seamanship.
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