October 8, 1999

Colloquium Topic: The Future of the Physical Sciences: A View From Washington

It is well known that in the last decade or so there has been a shift in emphasis from physical sciences to information ­ related sciences. The shift encompasses government funding, industrial expenditures and accompanying changes in available jobs and student population in the two fields. What does this change imply for the future of physical science? The speaker will provide a perspective from the government funding agency's point of view.

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Colloquium Speaker: Robert A. Eisenstein

Dr. Robert A. Eisenstein received an A.B. degree from Oberlin College with high honors in Physics in 1964 and received a Ph.D. degree in Experimental Nuclear Physics from Yale University in 1968. He was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Weizmann Institute, Israel from 1968 to 1970 and during 1970-84 he was at the physics department, Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Eisenstein joined the faculty at the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign, where he served as Director of the Nuclear Physics Laboratory for several years. In 1992, he came to the National Science Foundation as Director of the Physics Division and was appointed as Assistant Director of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate in 1997. Dr Eisenstein received a Weizmann Fellowship to support his post-doctoral research, and has enjoyed sabbaticals at LAMPF (1974) and at the University of Pittsburgh (1983). In 1979 he received the Ryan Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching from Carnegie Mellon. His teaching experience ranges from courses in high-school level physics to graduate level quantum mechanics. His present research interest center around the solar neutrino problem. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and a member of Sigma Xi.