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.…

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…

Born in Copenhagen, he grew up in Denmark, and was very involved in his father's Samfundshjælpen, which taught him the importance of collaboration between social classes. Topsøe studied at the Technical University,…

Shi Huang was born in Dalian, in the north of China. His mother was a doctor assigned to a military base there, but his father, also a doctor, had been assigned to another base in Beijing. Because this was during the…

George A. Olah begins the interview with a description of his family and childhood years in Budapest, Hungary. Olah first developed an interest in chemistry after taking a chemistry course at the Technical University of…

Andrew C. Chan was born in Hong Kong, the eldest of four children. His father was an engineer, his mother a teacher. When Chan was seven the family emigrated to the United States. His father was able to continue his…

Norman Li begins the interview with a description of his family and childhood years in Fuzhou, China. After World War II, Li's family moved to Taiwan, where Li completed high school. Li then attended National Taiwan…

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…

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…

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…

Carlos T. Moraes grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, one of three children. His father was in the military at first, but then became a mechanical engineer and a professor. His mother completed a degree in physical education.…

Frank R. Nissel begins the interview by describing his early childhood and schooling in Berlin, Germany, and subsequent move to Egypt due to the emergence of Adolf Hitler's policies. Arriving in Egypt at the age of…

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…

Yixian Zheng was born and raised in Chongqing, the Sichuan province of China, the elder (by about nine years) of the family's two daughters. Both of her parents were professors at Chongqing University—her mother in…

Toshio Tsukiyama was born in Chiba, a prefecture near Tokyo, Japan, the second of two children. His father began as an engineer in a company that built chemical factories, but he eventually became an executive. His…

Lilianna Solnica-Krezel was born in Cieplice-Sląskie, a small village in the mountains in the southwestern part of Poland, but grew up in Sandomierz, Poland, at a time when the country was still under the communist…

Andrew S. Grove begins the first interview session with a description of his undergraduate life at the City College of New York, where exposure to influential professors shaped his professional outlook and personal…

Karel Svoboda was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, though he and his family immigrated to western Germany—the Ruhr Valley—during the Cold War era, in stages: first, his father, then his mother, Svoboda, and one sister,…

Leslie L. Vadasz begins the first interview by describing his childhood in Budapest during World War II. Vadasz developed an early interest in mathematics and literature, and began an undergraduate mechanical…

Roy G. Neville comments on his family and his childhood in Bournemouth, England during the start of World War II, while admitting that he was not very intrigued by his first chemistry lesson but enjoyed performing…

Rudolph Pariser's life has been significantly shaped by the historical events of the 20th century, from being born in China since his mother found refuge there during Russian Revolution while his father escaped from his…

This oral history is part of a series supported by the Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS), University of California, Santa Barbara, under the National Science Foundation Grant No. SES 0531184. Researchers using…

Makoto Kuro-o grew up in Tokyo, the younger of two children. His father was an engineer, providing air conditioning systems for large structures like the Tokyo train stations. His mother went to college but did not work…

Henri Termeer begins his interview by discussing his parents’ histories, the influence of family, and his entrance into the business world. He describes how, as a boy, he began to develop leadership skills as early as…

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…