Jacques Tocatlian has always had an international take on learning and acquiring information. He was born in Egypt, where he attended a French secondary school. From there, Tocatlian moved on to study industrial…

Ivan Maxwell Robinson begins the interview with a discussion of his family life and education. He was born in the small village of Lakeville, Nova Scotia, where his father ran the general store, and his mother was a…

Pradip Raychaudhuri grew up in Calcutta (Kolkata), India, the oldest of seven children. His father was a pharmacist, his mother a housewife. As a youngster he played cricket and soccer and followed the professional…

Miguel A. Ondetti begins this interview by describing his parents' immigrant background and work in Argentina, his early interests in chemistry, and his education at vocational school in Buenos Aires. Upon high school…

Klaus Biemann's oral history begins with a discussion of his youth near Vienna, Austria. As pharmacy was the family profession, Biemann chose to study it at the University of Innsbruck. He soon developed an interest in…

Vladimir Haensel begins this interview by discussing his family life. Haensel, though born in Germany, spent parts of his childhood in Russia, Austria, and Germany. He attended a German gymnasium, where he had only a…

Yue Xiong was born in Nanchang, in Jiang Xi province, in the southern part of China, the eldest of three siblings (he has two younger sisters). His father was a forestry scholar who was sent to a labor camp during the…

Barbara Panning was born in Switzerland, one of three children. The family moved to Toronto, Canada, when Barbara was a young child, but Barbara continued to summer in Switzerland. She had an idyllic childhood and…

Maurice J. Kernan was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, the eldest of four siblings. His father worked for an insurance company; his mother was a homemaker. A love of the outdoors and interest in nature was nurtured…

Lee W. Riley was born Hiroshi Satoyoshi: he spent his first ten years with his mother in Yokohama, Japan, then lived for a short time in a Japanese orphanage before being adopted by the Riley family, at which time he…

Constantine E. Anagnostopoulos was born in Turkey in 1922 to parents of Greek descent. Due to Turkish expulsion of the Greeks when he was three months old, the family left for the Greek mainland. Because his father was…

Nancy B. Jackson was born in Wisconsin, and her family moved a few times during her childhood. Jackson spent much of her teenage years in St. Louis, Missouri. Both of her parents were United Church of Christ ministers.…

Sandra Harding was born in San Francisco, California, the first of five children born to Lloyd and Constance Harding. Her father's struggle to find work during the Great Depression led the family to Los Angeles, where…

Robert Robson begins the interview with a discussion about growing up in South Dakota. He discusses his education, his involvement with the Army, and his early interest in electronics. He also details his move to…

Carlos A. Cuadra, a pioneer in the field of information sciences, begins the interview by discussing his family and educational background. He describes how he continued his education while serving in the Navy during…

Kazuo Inamori was born in 1932 in Kagoshima, Japan, which lies on the southern tip of Kyushu Island—the southernmost of Japan's four largest islands. He was one of seven children. During elementary school, he was a very…

Jochen Buck was born and grew up in Reutlingen, Germany, in the Swabian Alb. His father was a teacher of science in the Gymnasium. His mother, a housewife, came from a middle-class family of butchers, and Jochen might…

Herbert Eleuterio was born in 1927 in New Bedford, Massachusetts. His parents had emigrated from the Azores, and he spoke no English until he began first grade. His interest in science was sparked by a middle-school…

Stephanie Kwolek begins the interview with a discussion of her early career at DuPont. She joined DuPont in 1946, the same year she earned her B.S. in chemistry at Carnegie-Mellon University. Kwolek spent much of her…

Stephanie Kwolek starts this interview by describing her family background. Her father's early death meant that her mother had to work to support Kwolek and her brother, who later became a chemical engineer. At the…

Andrew Camilli was born in Lima, Ohio, a factory town, the fifth of seven children. After Andrew's birth, the family moved to Flint, Michigan, where his father worked as a banker. Camilli's parents were both quite…

George Rosenkranz begins the interview with a discussion of his childhood years in Budapest, Hungary. After graduation from the German School, Rosenkranz attended the renowned Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.…

The interview begins with Dr. Joullié's description of her early life and education in Brazil. Her father sent her to Simmons College in the United States, where she received her undergraduate degree before obtaining…

Charles M. Judson begins his interview with a description of his father and the effect that his father had on his own interest in science. His father was a chief metrologist at the National Bureau of Standards and…

Collin R. Diedrich was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1983. His parents were originally from Kansas, and they settled in St. Louis to help Diedrich’s grandfather with his wholesale business. Diedrich grew up in a…