APS March Meeting 2014
Volume 59, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 3–7, 2014;
Denver, Colorado
Session M10: FIAP Prize Session: Beyond Academia: Personal Journeys of Successful Physics Careers in Industry
11:15 AM–12:27 PM,
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
Room: 201
Sponsoring
Unit:
FIAP
Chair: Gregory Meisner, General Motors Global Research and Development
Abstract ID: BAPS.2014.MAR.M10.2
Abstract: M10.00002 : From Electrons Paired to Electric Power Delivered-- A Personal Journey in Research and Applications of Superconductivity at IBM, EPRI, and Beyond
11:51 AM–12:27 PM
Preview Abstract
Abstract
Author:
Paul Grant
(W2AGZ Technologies)
This talk will reprise a personal journey by the speaker in industrial and
applied physics, commencing with his employment by IBM at age 17 in the
early 1950s, and continuing through his corporate sponsored undergraduate
and graduate years at Clarkson and Harvard Universities, resulting in 1965
in a doctorate in applied physics from the latter. He was subsequently
assigned by IBM to its research division in San Jose (now Almaden), where he
initially carried out both pure and applied theoretical and experimental
investigations encompassing a broad range of company-related product
technologies\textellipsis storage, display, printer and data acquisition
hardware and software. In 1973, he undertook performing DFT and quantum
Monte Carlo calculations in support of group research in the then emerging
field of organic and polymer superconductors, a very esoteric pursuit at the
time. Following upon several corporate staff assignments involving various
product development and sales strategies, in 1982 he was appointed manager
of the cooperative phenomena group in the Almaden Research Center, which
beginning in early 1987, made significant contributions to both the basic
science and applications of high temperature superconductivity (HTSC). In
1993, after a 40-year career, he retired from IBM to accept a Science Fellow
position at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) where he funded
power application development of superconductivity. In 2004, he retired from
his EPRI career to undertake ``due diligence'' consulting services in
support of the venture capital community in Silicon Valley. As a ``hobby,''
he currently pursues and publishes DFT studies in hope of discovering the
pairing mechanism of HTSC. In summary, the speaker's career in industrial
and applied physics demonstrates one can combine publishing a record three
PRLs in one month with crawling around underground in substations with
utility lineman helping install superconducting cables, along the way
publishing 10 patents, conducting numerous interviews with the national
media, serving a sabbatical as visiting professor at the National University
of Mexico, writing review articles, commentaries and book reviews for
Scientific American, Physics World and Nature and, most importantly, having
lots of fun at the end of the day!
To cite this abstract, use the following reference: http://meetings.aps.org/link/BAPS.2014.MAR.M10.2