Jesse Ausubel participated in “Looking Back as We Move Forward,” a conference in honor of historian of science Jed Z. Buchwald, at the California Institute of Technology 26-27 April 2019, and contributed a paper on “Microphysics and Macrohistory” to the proceedings. Buchwald is an expert on Maxwell and microphysics.
Area of Research: The Scientific Enterprise
Thomas Bailey, new president of Teacher’s College
In 1996 while working with Ralph Gomory, then President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Jesse Ausubel helped Sloan develop initiatives in higher education. These included the first university simulator (Virtual U.), professional science master’s degrees (championed by Sheila Tobias), and research on community colleges. A great success was (is) the Community College Research Center (CCRC) at Teacher’s College (TC). The CCRC was partly inspired by insights of TC faculty member Thomas Bailey, an expert on the high-performance workplace and school-to-work transitions. Bailey became the founding director of the CCRC and led it until this autumn, when he became President of Teacher’s College. Congratulations to Tom and to TC. Read Tom’s excellent inaugural address and about his pathfinding career, which includes kind mentions of Sloan and Jesse.
Leonardo Madrid Exhibition
“Leonardo da Vinci: the faces of the genius,” an exhibition curated by our esteemed colleague in the Leonardo DNA Project, Christian Galvez, opens in Madrid on 30 November. Team members Jose Lorente and Karina Aberg will participate. The exhibition includes a section about our search for his DNA.
Remembrances, passing of Jeannette Aspden
The passing on 30 September 2018 in Washington DC of Jeannette Aspden, colleague from IIASA and the Carnegie Commission, elicits a brief written tribute. Celebrations and remembrances of our colleagues have accumulated over the years, and we re-post them here.
Vera Alexander (Remembrance 2023)
Jeannette Aspden (Remembrance 2018)
Robert Herman (In Memory of Robert Herman, 1997)
Robert Kates (The Classification of Robert Kates, 2018)
Alexander Keynan (The Germination of Alexander Keynan, in memoriam, 2013)
Janusz Kindler (Remembrance, 2021)
Joshua Lederberg (In memoriam, 2008)
Joshua Lederberg (A Tribute to the Foresight of Joshua Lederberg, 2009)
Thomas F. Malone (Tom Malone here [poem], 1984)
Andrew W. Marshall, Andrew Marshall and Classics (remembrance, 2019)
Rodney Nichols (2018)
William A. Nierenberg (Memorial Tribute, 2000)
William D. Nordhaus (Getting to know Bill Nordhaus and Climate, 2019)
Fan and Don Ogilvie (“It was fruit“, poem celebrating our friendship)
Arthur L. Singer, Jr. (Old Friends, A Remembrance, 2020)
Chauncey Starr (A 90th Birthday Tribute, 2002)
Oleg F. Vasiliev, 1925-2017 (scroll to second entry past Beck tribute)
Paul E. Waggoner (Thriving Thrift: On the Occasion of Paul Waggoner Appreciation Day, 2013)
Robert M. White (Portrait of Robert M. White in the style of Gertrude Stein, 1979)
Norton Zinder (A Remembrance of Norton Zinder, 2012)
Census of Marine Life, for a personal view of the program, read Jesse’s poem, The Census of Marine Life is about the total richness of the sea, the foreword to Life in the World’s Oceans: Diversity, Distribution, and Abundance, A. McIntyre (ed.), Wiley-Blackwell, 2010
Leonardo Da Vinci DNA project 12 Feb seminar at Rockefeller
The Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project:
Exploring the Intersections of Science and Art
Click on the title to see the lecture in YouTube
Featuring:
Jesse Ausubel, Karina Åberg, and Thomas P. Sakmar
Monday, February 12, 2018
6:00–7:15 p.m.Caspary Auditorium
The Rockefeller University
1230 York Avenue at East 66th Street New York, NY 10065
DNA sequencing has revolutionized the study of human genetic variation, and insights derived from DNA now matter in diverse settings – from hospitals to courtrooms. Scientists are now also exploring information that DNA might yield about cultural heritage. For example, what can it reveal about works of art and their creators?
Leonardo da Vinci is widely recognized as one of the most extraordinary figures in human history. Leading up to the 500th anniversary of his death in 2019, an international team –– including anthropologists, artists, art historians, forensic experts, genealogists, microbiologists, physicians, and population geneticists –– has assembled to uncover new facts and insights about Leonardo. One of the ambitious goals of the team is to use pioneering methods to obtain traces of DNA attributable to Leonardo from artworks, notebooks or other sources.
On Monday, February 12, three members of The Leonardo DNA Project team – Jesse Ausubel, Karina Åberg, and Thomas P. Sakmar – will describe the origins of this remarkable project, provide a progress report on their research, and reflect on how this scientific inquiry may contribute to art history and conservation, while uncovering new information about Leonardo’s life, ancestry and exceptional abilities.
Jesse Ausubel, Director of the Program for the Human Environment at The Rockefeller University, has helped design and conduct major international research programs, including the Census of Marine Life, Barcode of Life initiative, and Encyclopedia of Life. His lab is now using very short sequences of loose DNA found in seawater to assess the status of marine life. He initiated The Leonardo DNA Project in 2014.
Karina Åberg is a visual artist with a longstanding special interest in the application of digital technology to education. Her unique skill set and enthusiasm about digital media and technology have facilitated her innovative contributions to digital design, advertising, communications and teaching. Her early training in Renaissance art techniques has led to several advances as a member of The Leonardo DNA Project since 2015.
Thomas P. Sakmar is a physician-scientist and the Richard M. & Isabel P. Furlaud Professor at The Rockefeller University, where he heads the Laboratory of Chemical Biology and Signal Transduction. His research program is dedicated to chemical biology and drug discovery research. His interest in visual sensory perception and the origins of creativity in science and the arts have led to his involvement in The Leonardo DNA Project since 2014.
Science Diplomacy 2017 course essay
During the winter-spring of 2017, Mande Holford, Rod Nichols, and Jesse Ausubel organized a seminar series for the 5th year in a row on Science & Diplomacy. Participants May Dobosiewicz and Kimberly Siletti have posted a short essay about the series titled The Many Faces of Science Diplomacy.
Leonardo DNA Project in National Geographic
Leonardo DNA Project in the news
The Leonardo DNA Project features on pages 49 and 54-55 of Claudia Kalb’s article about genius in the May 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine.
Elga Daifa published on article about the Leonardo DNA Project in the Greek edition of People magazine: https://www.peoplegreece.com/article/spazontas-ton-kodika-tou-dna-tou-leonardo-da-vinci-nees-apokalipsis-gia-ton-efevreti-ke-zografo-enigma/
Sarah Cascone writes about the project in ArtNet news
Cracking the Real da Vinci Code: Meet the Scientist Who Is Mapping Leonardo’s DNA
Sam Munson published an interview with Jesse Ausubel about the Leonardo DNA Project in the Octavian Report: https://octavianreport.com/article/jesse-ausubel-leonardo-genome/
And an article in Art News Ukraine ?????? ?????????? «??? ?? ?????» ? ??????? ??? ??? ???????–Aug 17, 2017
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English translation of Ausubel autobiography
In 2014, Di Renzo published in Italian Jesse Ausubel’s autobiography La liberazione dell’ambiente (autobiography) 112 pp. We now post an English translation as The Liberation of the Environment. The autobiography (48 pages in English) should not be confused with the short essay also titled Liberation of the Environment which opens the 1996 Daedalus special issue on environment and 1997 NAE book Technological Trajectories and the Human Environment.
Intellectual Migrations and Global Universities
On the 25th anniversary of publication, we post Jesse Ausubel’s 1992 essay “Intellectual Migrations and Global Universities,” which accurately foresaw saturation of domestic markets leading to aggressive globalization of USA universities.
Community College Research Center 20th anniversary with Jill Biden
During 1996, on behalf of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Jesse Ausubel helped Prof. Thomas Bailey establish the Community College Research Center at Teachers College. The influential center celebrated its 20th anniversary on 17 November 2016 with a symposium highlighted by a talk by Dr. Jill Biden, 2nd Lady of the USA and professor at Northern Virginia Community College. For Jesse’s role, please watch minutes 10 to 18 of this video:
https://livestream.com/teacherscollegecolumbiauniversity/CCRC20
Below are TC President Susan Fuhrman, Prof. Bailey, Prof. Biden, Anne Ausubel (who worked at TC during the late 1960s and early 1970s), and Jesse Ausubel.