One of the many programs within the American institute of Physics, based right here in College Park, is the Niels Bohr Library and Archives. This program serves as a center for physics history, a repository for documents and images and other records of physics over the decades.

 One of their current projects is expanding their collection of oral history recordings. These interviews, carried out over the past 60 years, serve as records both of great scientific discoveries of the era and of many physicists’ personal experiences within the worlds of academia, industry, and government. Their collection can be browsed online, and is a fascinating way to explore the history of our field.

 A new interview with UMD’s own Prof. Joe Redish was recently added to the collection, you can read the transcript here as he discusses his experiences first as a nuclear theorist and his transition to education research.

 But Prof. Redish isn’t the only UMD physicist with an interview in the collection. Other past and present faculty who have been interviewed include Joseph Weber, Bob Park, and Carroll Alley. You can also read interviews with prominent UMD Physics alumni, like Dr. Han Wen of the National Institutes of Health, Goetz Oertel of the Department of Energy, and Robert Herman of JHU’s Applied Physics Lab.

 Click here to check out all the UMD folks in the archive!

Or explore the full oral history collection at AIP: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories