!!Charles H. Townes
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__Biographical Data__
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Born July 28, 1915, in Greenville, South Carolina, Dr. Townes graduated from Furman University in 1935, earning a Bachelor of Science in physics and a Bachelor of Arts in modern languages.  He completed a master’s degree in physics at Duke University in 1936 and in 1939 received the Ph.D. degree in physics at the California Institute of Technology.  He was a staff member of Bell Laboratories from 1939-1947, then successively Associate Professor of Physics, Professor, and Chairman of the Physics Department at Columbia University between 1948 and 1961.  In 1959-1961, he was in Washington as Vice-President and Director of Research of the Institute for Defense Analysis.  He was Provost and Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1961-65, and University Professor at the University of California from 1967 to the present.  In July, 1986, he became University Professor Emeritus, and in 1994, Professor in the Graduate School.
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Dr. Townes’ principal scientific work is in microwave spectroscopy, nuclear and molecular structure, quantum electronics, radio astronomy and infrared astronomy.  He holds the original patent for the maser and with Arthur Schawlow, the original laser patent.  He received the Nobel Prize in 1964 “for fundamental work in quantum electronics which has led to the construction of oscillators and amplifiers based on the maser-laser principle.”
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At the University of California, Townes returned to full-time research and teaching, and pursued new interests in astrophysics.  His work there in radio astronomy resulted in the first detection of polyatomic molecules in interstellar clouds and the use of molecular spectra to characterize these dark clouds, now an important astronomical field.  In the infrared region, he has worked primarily on high spectral and spatial resolution for astronomical observations.  Much of this work has been directed towards understanding the galactic center.  Since 1998, Townes has been using a pair of moveable telescopes for obtaining very high angular resolution of astronomical objects at infrared wavelengths by spatial interferometry.  A third telescope for this system will soon be installed. 
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During much of his career, Townes has been active as a government advisor.  He was a member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee from 1965 to 1969, and vice chairman of that group during the second half of his term.  He was chairman of the technical advisory committee for the Apollo Program until shortly after the first successful lunar landing.  More recently, he has chaired committees on Strategic Weapons and the MX missile.  He has been active in the National Academy of Science’s contacts with China, its work on Arms Control, and its meetings with representatives of the Soviet Academy; he has also had an active role in helping to formulate advice given by the Papal Academy to the Pope on issues of peace and the control of nuclear weapons.  From January to December 1967, Townes served as the president of the American Physical Society.  
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In addition to the Nobel Prize, Dr. Townes received the 1982 National Medal of Science.  Townes is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of London, the Max Planck Society, the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and the Engineering and Science Hall of Fame.  He has received the Stuart Ballantine Medal of the Franklin Institute.  Other awards include the Rumford Premium of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the C.E.K. Mees Medal of the Optical Society of America, the Medal of Honor of the Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Plyler Prize of the American Physical Society, NASA’s Distinguished Public Service Medal, and the Berkeley Citation.  Among Dr. Townes’ international awards are the Thomas Young Medal and Prize of the Institute of Physics and the Physical Society (England), the Wilhelm Exner Award (Austria), the 1979 Niels Bohr International Gold Medal, the Lomonosov Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Rabindranath Tagore Award of India, the Karl Schwarzschild Medal of German-speaking countries the 2001 SPIE Award, and the 2005 Templeton Prize and the 2006 Vannevar Bush medal.  He also has twenty-nine honorary degrees.
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__Charles H. Townes - Curriculum Vitae__
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Date of Birth: July 28, 1915\\
Place of Birth:	Greenville, South Carolina\\
Business Address: University of California, Department of Physics - M/C 7300, Berkeley, CA 94720-7300\\
Education: Furman University, B.A. and B.S., 1935, Duke University, M.A., 1937, California Institute of Technology, Ph.D., 1939
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__Professional History__
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*Assistant in Physics, California Institute of Technology	1937-39
*Member of the Technical Staff, Bell Telephone Laboratories	1939-47
*Associate Professor of Physics, Columbia University	1948-50
*Professor of Physics, Columbia University	1950-61
*Executive Director, Columbia Radiation Laboratory	1950-52
*Chairman, Department of Physics, Columbia University	1952-55
*Vice President and Director of Research, Institute for Defense Analyses	1959-61
*Provost and Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology	1961-66
*Institute Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology	1966-67
*University Professor of Physics, University of California at Berkeley	1967-86
*Professor of Physics, Emeritus, University of California at Berkeley	1986-94
*Professor in the Graduate School, University of California at Berkeley	1994-
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*Adams Fellow, Columbia University	1950
*National Lecturer, Sigma Xi	1950-51
*Summer Lecturer, University of Michigan	1952
*Lecturer, Enrico Fermi International School of Physics	1955, 1960
*Guggenheim Fellow		1955-56
*Fulbright Lecturer, University of Paris	1955-56
*Fulbright Lecturer, University of Tokyo	1956
*Richtmeyer Lecturer, The American Physical Society	1959
*Director, Enrico Fermi International School of Physics	1963
*Scott Lecturer, University of Cambridge	1963
*Centennial Lecturer, University of Toronto	1967
*The Stanley H. Klosk Visiting Lectureship, New York University	1967
*Visiting Cullum Scholar, Augusta College	1968
*Jansky Lecturer, National Radio Astronomy Observatory	1971
*Remsen Memorial Lecturer, Johns Hopkins University	1972
*Lincoln Lecturer, Board of Foreign Scholarship	1972-73
*Halley Lecturer, Oxford University	1976
*Harry Welsh Lecturer, University of Toronto	1977
*Leonard I. Schiff Memorial Lecturer, Stanford University	1982
*Michelson Memorial Lecturer, U.S. Naval Academy	1982
*R.M. Petrie Lecturer, Canadian Astronomical Society, Toronto	1985
*Faculty Research Lecturer, University of California, Berkeley	1985-86
*Beckman Lecturer, University of Illinois	1986
*Schultz Lecturer, Yale University	1987
*Fulbright Fellow Lecturer, College de France and École Normal Supérieure	1987
*Darwin Lecture Series Lecturer, Darwin College, Cambridge University	1988
*Marlar Lecturer, University of California, San Diego	1988
*W.V. Houston Memorial Lecturer, Rice University, Houston	1990
*Van Vleck Lectureship, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis	1990
*K.S. Krishnan Memorial Lecture, National Physical Laboratory, India	1992
*Golden Jubilee Lecture, C.S.I.R., India	1992
*Nishina Lecturer, Tokyo, Japan	1992
*Rajiv Gandhi Lecture, New Delhi, India	1997
*Weinberg Lecture, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee	1997
*Henry Norris Russell Lectureship, American Astronomical Society	1998
*Frank Annunzio Award, Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation	1999
*Rabindranath Tagore Birth Centenary Plaque, Asiatic Society	1999
*Karl Schwarzschild Medal 	2002
*Frank Drake Award, SETI Institute	2002
*Trotter Prize, Texas A&M University College of Science	2002
*Templeton Prize	2005
*Vannevar Bush Medal	2006
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__Honorary Degrees__
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29 Honorary Degrees from various institutions