J. Craig Venter; Founder, J. Craig Venter Institute: Revolutionizing the Life Sciences
If audacity is what it takes to get things done, J. Craig Venter is happy to bring a truckload to the lab. Forget traditional collaboration and the slow building of data. Venter has famously started his own companies and plowed ahead in a way that has unnerved the scientific establishment. That is how he became more famous for deciphering the human genome than the international army of scientists who shared the achievement, how he hopes to understand every microbe in the ocean (through his Global Ocean Sampling Expedition), and how he plans to create artificial life. With his successes, Venter now inspires everyone from Nobel laureates to untenured professors to launch start-ups, streamlining the path to discovery and racking up profits along the way.
“Craig’s career is defined by his creativity, fearlessness, and disregard for traditional thought,” says Huntington F. Willard, director of the Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy. “Ultimately, beyond his string of firsts, his influence will be marked by what my students sense immediately in hearing about his work: It’s good to be daring and to challenge the status quo.”
“Craig is not afraid to dream and think big, very big,” says Jay Keasling, founding director of the synthetic biology department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “Many of us suffer from constraints in our thinking, particularly on the grand scale. Craig does not suffer these limitations. What is even more impressive is that he can actually accomplish what he dreams.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson; Director, Hayden Planetarium: Taking Science to the People
There may never be another Carl Sagan, but if anyone can take up the mantle as a science popularizer, it is Neil deGrasse Tyson. In fact, Sagan had personally tried to recruit a high-school-age Tyson to attend his home base, Cornell University. Tyson chose to go to Harvard instead but was influenced by Sagan nevertheless, developing an ability to lure a massive audience into the world of science through his sense of excitement. Besides best-selling books, including The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist, Tyson has become a familiar face on TV, hosting NOVA ScienceNOW and the hit miniseries Origins, as well as goofing around on The Daily Show.
Unafraid of controversy in his role as director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History, Tyson insisted that the museum deny Pluto planetary status years before the scientific establishment caught up with the idea. George W. Bush has sought his input. An asteroid was named in his honor. And, oh yes, People magazine named him “Sexiest Astrophysicist Alive.”
Carl would be proud. Indeed, Sagan’s widow, Ann Druyan, a science popularizer in her own right, says of Tyson: “I know of no living scientist who connects as well with people lacking prior inclination toward matters scientific. I’ve seen them come away from his talks both enchanted and curious about science and nature. As Carl did, Neil combines rigorous skepticism with wonder, never one at the expense of the other.”
Barbara Mikulski; U.S. Senator, D-Maryland: Washington’s Science Advocate
When it comes to progress in science, funding from government is often the grease we need most. That’s why so many scientists are glad to have Barbara Mikulski on their side. As chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science, the Maryland senator has fought for federal science funding through the NIH, the National Science Foundation, and others. She has also championed the space program and stem cell research in the United States.
“Senator Mikulski knows that science and technology grow our economy and contribute to our national security,” says Charles Bennett, principal investigator for the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, a NASA Explorer mission that produced an image of the oldest light in the universe. “She’s at the forefront of enabling innovation. When it comes to science and technology, she really gets it.”
Bill Gates; Founder, Microsoft: Health for Developing Nations
After Bill Gates laid the track for the PC railroad, the explosion of personal computing pulled people together as never before. This shift allowed Gates to see more clearly those stuck at the edges. Crediting his billionaire friend Warren Buffett with inspiring him by example, Gates embraced philanthropy. Enter the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the wealthiest charitable organization on the planet. A focus of the foundation is public health, especially in the developing world, and with this reach Bill Gates has become as much a force as some of the largest government health institutions.
The Gates Foundation brings treatment to the indigent and funds lifesaving research, including development of new tuberculosis, malaria, and AIDS vaccines.
“Because of Gates’s generosity, the world is following,” says Stephen Blount, director of the Coordinating Office for Global Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Gates’s global health projects have been so compelling, Blount says, that some of the most senior people at the CDC have taken positions at the Gates Foundation after their retirement. Following Gates’s lead, the top guns of industry now regularly collaborate with the most important institutions of government, streamlining a process that is often slowed by red tape.
Michael Griffin; Administrator of NASA: Charting a Course Through Space
If you’re wondering how we might catch up with the vision that guided the starship Enterprise, just ask NASA administrator Michael Griffin about his plans. “For me the single overarching goal of human spaceflight is the human settlement of the solar system and eventually beyond,” Griffin told Congress in 2003. He intends to use the moon as a base camp for human exploration of Mars and hopes to mine resources and set up shop in both locations.
“Extraordinary times require extraordinary leadership,” says Michael Weiss, deputy manager of the Hubble Space Telescope Program at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “This best captures the spirit of Michael Griffin, who had the courage to resurrect the last shuttle mission to Hubble in the aftermath of the tragic Columbia accident and firmly believed the engineers would find a way to mitigate the additional risk.”
“Griffin took the leadership of NASA in difficult times—the shuttle was aging, the space station was boring, the budget was flat, and there were no real goals,” Mars scientist Phil Christensen adds. “His single purpose has been to restore NASA’s ability to inspire by setting lofty goals and resurrecting the capability to achieve those goals. His primary focus has been to get humans back doing what they should do in space—explore.”
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