Interview with Jerome Pine

Abstract

An interview in four sessions, October-November 2001, with Jerome Pine, neuroscientist and physics professor in the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy. Recalls graduate school at Cornell (MS with Philip Morrison, PhD, 1956, with Kenneth Greisen); instructorship 1956-62 at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center; arrival at Caltech as associate professor in 1963. Member of Caltech high-energy physics user group at SLAC and Fermilab; early involvement in science education; takes up neuroscience; 1978-79 sabbatical, Washington University Medical School with W. Maxwell Cowan; neurobiology workshop, Woods Hole, summer 1978; summer course with John Nicholls, Cold Spring Harbor, 1979; invents multi-electrode device to record action potentials from cultured neurons; sets up Pinelab; prevalence of physicists in neurobiology. Recalls graduate students; discusses his neurobiology course. 1987-88 sabbatical in U.K. at Medical Research Council Laboratory with Dennis Bray and Kings College-Chelsea on science assessment in schools; NSF grant to study science assessment in elementary schools. Works on elementary-school science education with James M. Bower in Pasadena school district; with Bower and Jennifer Yuré, visits Mesa, AZ, school district. Pilot program, Field School, later expansion; partnership with Apple; establishment of Project SEED (Science for Early Educational Development). Involvement of Georges Charpak; program in France. Establishment of CAPSI (Caltech Precollege Science Initiative); developing content modules for teacher education; grant from NSF Centers for Teacher Enhancement. His innovations in Caltech undergraduate physics; two-track Physics 1 course; take-home physics kits. Freshman seminars; teaching atomic physics to juniors. Caltech’s lack of interest in CAPSI; CAPSI’s research division; Caltech’s promotion of student diversity; Lee Browne’s minority-students program. Concludes by discussing spread of his science-education programs to Colombia, Estonia, and Sweden.