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By Mary Ruth Yoe & Qiana Johnson
Photography by Dan Dry
Heralded by a flourish of trumpets and an honor guard carrying
brightly colored banners, 16 University of Chicago alumni and one
University professor were honored by the U of C Alumni Association
in a Rockefeller Chapel ceremony during Reunion 1999.
“So many defining moments—those single moments that seem
to have special significance—in my life took place in Chicago,”
Marvin L. (“Murph”) Goldberger, PhD’48, told the
Rockefeller audience as he accepted the University’s highest
alumni honor, the Alumni Medal. Goldberger—a physicist and
academic leader with a superlative record of accomplishment in science,
educational administration, and public policy—counted among
those moments his birth in Chicago, his work with Enrico Fermi on
the Manhattan Project, meeting and marrying his wife, and teaching
in the physics faculty from 1950 until 1957. “There’s
an intangible quality about the University of Chicago,” he
concluded, “which changes very much for the better anyone who’s
had the good fortune to be here.”
Goldberger—who completes a term as dean of the Division of
Natural Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, this
June—has served as president of the California Institute of
Technology and director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
As a physicist, he is best known for his contributions to quantum
scattering theory, studies which provided the central tools of high-energy
theoretical physics for two decades. With a reputation for candor,
humor, and a deep commitment to science, Goldberger, through his
years of research and teaching, was always at the center of a vibrant
school of students, postdocs, and colleagues.
Active in national affairs, notably on matters of national security,
he was founder and first chair of the jason group of distinguished
scientists who provide advice to the government on technical issues.
Serving on the President’s Science Advisory Committee, he was
the first chair of the Committee in International Security and Arms
Control, which was established by the National Academy of Sciences
to carry on a dialogue with a comparable committee of Soviet scientists.
A fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical
Society, and the American Academy of Sciences, Goldberger has written
numerous books and articles and received several honorary degrees.
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