Biography

Dr. Leon Lederman is an internationally renowned scientist and educator. Born in New York, he earned his undergraduate degree at the City College of New York; and earned his PhD in physics at Columbia University. He joined the faculty at Columbia and rose to the rank of Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics. In 1979, he became the second director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia. He was a member of the faculty at the University of Chicago and currently is the Pritzker Professor of Science at Illinois Institute of Technology. Dr. Lederman’s work at Columbia involved a broad range of experimental physics, which discovered the neutral kaon particle, two kinds of neutrinos, and the upsilon particle, among other major accomplishments. Dr. Lederman shared, with Melvin Schwartz and Jack Steinberger, the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1988. In addition, he has been awarded the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize in Physics, and the Ernest O. Lawrence Medal. He is a former president of the American Physical Society and also the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He serves as president of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Dr. Lederman devotes much of his energy to improvement in scientific education. He is a founder of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, a residence public school for gifted students. He is a leader in the movement to rearrange and strengthen science curricula in high school. His enthusiasm and insight are a major force in improving science education.

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