The Department of Materials Science and Engineering has announced that this year's Wulff Lecturer will be Professor Rustum Roy of the Materials Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University. His talk, entitled "Materials: Research, Education, and Service-Realignment of Focus: Outward," will take place on Wednesday, Dec. 4 at 3:30pm in Rm 10-250.
Professor Roy has been involved in federal science policy-making and analysis for two decades and has become the "leader of the opposition" to much of the current national science policy. His 1985 book, Lost at the Frontier, accurately predicted the loss of morale among scientists and the decline of US industrial research. For the last decade he has been a national advocate for radically redirecting math and science education with the goal of technological literacy for the majority of citizens. He is the Evan Pugh Professor of the Solid State, professor of geochemistry, and professor of science, technology and society, and specializes in studying the synthesis of new ceramic materials.
The Wulff Lecture honors the late Professor John Wulff, a skilled and provocative teacher who originated the popular subject 3.091 (Introduction to Solid State Chemistry).
There will be refreshments outside the hall prior to the talk. All are welcome, and freshmen are particularly encouraged to attend.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on November 20, 1996.