Oral history interview with Robert Park, 2001 March 4 and 7
Robert L. Park, W. Patrick McCray (Interviewer)
Autobiographical oral history with Park. Topics include his childhood and education; his early experiences with science; early plans to go to law school; Air Force experience in the 1950s. Left Air Force 1956, education at University of Texas; reactions to Cold War and Sputnik; graduate school at Brown University; graduate research in solid state physics with Harry Farnsworth; first position at Sandia Laboratories; research in surface physics, disucssion of this work; reaction to atomic weapons production. Left Sandia for the University of Maryland, became department chair in 1978; Discussion of physics at Maryland during his tenure; University research topics and research styles; his directorship of the Washington office of the American Physical Society; beginning of his series of updates and newsletters describing events in Washington and elsewhere of interest to physicists, which became the "What's New" column. Remainder of interview focuses on Park's experiences as interface of public policy, science, and politics. Final comments on changes in the physics community during his career
Archival Material, English, 2001