When the call from the White House came in late December, Lucy Shapiro wasn’t quite sure how to react.
“When someone gets on the phone and tells you that the President of the United States is awarding you the highest honor that they give in science and technology, and that is also for outstanding service to your nation, it’s quite a thrill,” Shapiro, professor of developmental biology at the School of Medicine, said.
Lucy Shapiro, a biology professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, and Sidney Drell, professor emeritus at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, were honored by President Barack Obama in the White House today as recipients of “America’s Nobel Prize”– the National Medal of Science.
“Politics is much harder than physics — we cannot force or coerce the laws of nature to change,” said Sidney Drell, co-founder of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Wednesday evening during a discussion about the politics of nuclear weapons.
When Washington looks for advice on nuclear deterrence, disarmament and nonproliferation, it knows it can look to Stanford.
In front of a packed audience in Tresidder Memorial Union yesterday, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and renowned physicist Sidney Drell spoke about the dangers of nuclear proliferation and their joint efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.