Joseph A. Burton Forum Award (2022): No Simple Trajectory: Navigating between Research in Theoretical Physics and the Civic Responsibility of a Scientist

I reflect upon more than 50 years as a theoretical physicist.  Born as a physicist in tumultuous times, I have been torn between intense immersion in research and the compulsion to engage issues in the public sphere -- science policy, outreach, and education.  What began in the early 1970s with the Stanford Workshops on Political and Social Issues has now culminated with a decade-long project to create an undergraduate course on the Physics of Energy.  As I describe these projects, their origins in the context of their times, and the complicated trajectory I followed in between, I hope some lessons for a younger generation of physicists will emerge.