Alvin W. Trivelpiece (died 2022) was an American physicist whose varied career included positions as director of the Office of Energy Research of the
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), executive officer of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...
(AAAS), and director of
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He was also a professor of physics and a corporate executive. Trivelpiece's research focused on plasma physics, controlled thermonuclear research, and particle accelerators. He received several patents for accelerators and microwave devices.
He died in California in 2022 at the age of 91.
Education
He grew up in
Stockton, California, an agricultural community, where he had only limited exposure to science. In 1948, after working as a construction lineman, he found himself unemployed and set off to
hitchhike
Hitchhiking (also known as thumbing, autostop or hitching) is a means of transportation that is gained by asking individuals, usually strangers, for a ride in their car or other vehicle. The ride is usually, but not always, free.
Nomads have ...
to
New Orleans. Passing through
San Luis Obispo, California, he stopped off to visit an aunt who lived there. She and her husband, who was a faculty member at
California Polytechnic State University
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (California Polytechnic State University, Cal Poly"Cal Poly" may also refer to California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt in Arcata, California or California State Polytechnic Univ ...
in San Luis Obispo, talked him into staying there and starting college. He graduated from "Cal Poly" with a B.S. degree in 1953.
1955—M.S.
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
1958—Ph.D.
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...
Career
1958 – 1959—
Fulbright Scholar
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...
in the
Netherlands
1959 – 1966—Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering,
University of California, Berkeley
1966 – 1976—Professor of Physics,
University of Maryland
1967—
Guggenheim Fellow
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
1973 – 1975—Assistant Director for Fusion Research, Division of Controlled Thermonuclear Research,
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by U.S. Congress to foster and control the peacetime development of atomic science and technology. President ...
(on leave from the
University of Maryland)
1976 – 1978—Vice-president for engineering and research, Maxwell Laboratories, San Diego, CA
1978 – 1981—Corporate Vice-president, Science Applications, Inc., La Jolla, CA
1979—Trivelpiece co-founded the Fusion Power Associates with
Stephen O. Dean and
Nicholas Krall a fusion advocacy organization.
1981 – 1987—Director of the Office of Energy Research,
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
During his early years as director of the DOE Office of Energy Research, Dr. Trivelpiece planned major projects and DOE facilities including,
*the
Advanced Light Source
The Advanced Light Source (ALS) is a research facility at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California. One of the world's brightest sources of ultraviolet and soft x-ray light, the ALS is the first "third-generation" synchrotr ...
(ALS) at
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)
*the
Advanced Photon Source
The Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory (in Lemont, Illinois) is a storage-ring-based high-energy X-ray light source facility. It is one of five X-ray light sources owned and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office o ...
(APS) at
Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research national laboratory operated by UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facility is located in Lemont, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and is the larg ...
(ANL),
*the
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC ) is the first and one of only two operating heavy-ion colliders, and the only spin-polarized proton collider ever built. Located at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) in Upton, New York, and used by a ...
(RHIC) at
Brookhaven National Laboratory
Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is a United States Department of Energy national laboratories, United States Department of Energy national laboratory located in Upton, New York, Upton, Long Island, and was formally established in 1947 at th ...
(BNL),
*the
Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF) at
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility
Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF), commonly called Jefferson Lab or JLab, is a US National Laboratory located in Newport News, Virginia. Its stated mission is "to provide forefront scientific facilities, opportunities an ...
(TJNAF),
*what would become the
Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
*along with
Evgeny Velikhov
Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov (born on February 2, 1935; in Russian: ''Евгений Павлович Велихов'') is a physicist and scientific leader in the Russian Federation. His scientific interests include plasma physics, lasers, control ...
, laid the groundwork that led to the
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
1987 (Apr) – 1989 (Jan)—Executive Officer,
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...
(AAAS)
1989 (Jan) – 2000 (Mar)—Director,
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN, where he was responsible for programs that included applied research and engineering development in support of the
Department of Energy A Ministry of Energy or Department of Energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-relat ...
's fusion, fission, conservation, and fossil energy technology programs.
[
1989 – 1995—Vice-president, Martin Marietta Energy Systems
1996 – 2000—President, Lockheed Martin Energy Research Corporation
Beginning in May 2000, Dr. Trivelpiece was advisor to and/or chaired workshops/committees for several government laboratories and agencies, including Sandia National Laboratories and DOE's ]Office of Scientific and Technical Information
The Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI) is a component of the Office of Science within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The '' Energy Policy Act'' PL 109–58, Section 982, called out the responsibility of OSTI: "The Secret ...
(OSTI). Workshops chaired for DOE OSTI were in May 2000 and February 2007. The former considered issues related to communication, dissemination, and use of information in the physical sciences and made recommendations for increasing the productivity of the scientific enterprise in the United States. The latter focused on strategies to accelerate the spread of knowledge about science and technology.
Human Genome Project
As a result of reports proposing the project and outlining its scope provided to him by Charles DeLisi
Charles Peter DeLisi (born December 9, 1941) is an American biomedical scientist and the Metcalf Professor of Science and Engineering at Boston University. He is noted for major contributions to the initiation of the Human Genome Project, for t ...
, associate director of energy research for Health and Environmental Research, in fiscal year 1987. Trivelpiece supported, through the use of reprogrammed funds at DOE, the beginnings that led to the Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project (HGP) was an international scientific research project with the goal of determining the base pairs that make up human DNA, and of identifying, mapping and sequencing all of the genes of the human genome from both a ph ...
.
An April 1987, DOE's Office of Health and Environmental Research (OHER) Health and Environmental Research Advisory Committee (HERAC) report recommended that DOE and the nation commit to a large, multidisciplinary, scientific, and technological undertaking to map and sequence the human genome. Earmarked spending began in Fiscal Year 1988 when the Human Genome Project was established by congressional action at both the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and DOE.
The chart used in the spring of 1986 by Trivelpiece to brief Deputy Secretary William F. Martin and Under Secretary Joseph Salgado regarding his intention to reprogram $4 million to initiate the Department's Human Genome Project is available her
This reprogramming was followed by a line item budget of $16 million the following year. This modest effort triggered the activities that led to the sequencing of the Human Genome. A letter from then Department of Energy Deputy Secretary William Flynn Martin accrediting these achievements to Dr. Trivelpiece can be seen her
A speech given to the American Physical Society in 2005 by Dr. Trivelpiece on DOE's role in such major project can be seen her
as well as his articl
on the same subject in the Fall 2005 Forum on the History of Physics Newsletter.
Member
1986—Head of the U.S. Delegation to USSR on Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy
1999—Chair, Science and Technology in KAZAKHSTAN :Current Status and Future Prospects, National Research Council's Committee on Science and Technology Policy Aspects of Selected Social and Economic Issues in Russia
1995 – 2000—Chair, Science and Technology Advisory Council for the State of Tennessee
1989 – 2001—Board of Directors of Bausch & Lomb
Bausch + Lomb is an eye health products company based in Vaughan, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the world's largest suppliers of contact lenses, lens care products, pharmaceuticals, intraocular lenses, and other eye surgery products. The comp ...
2000 – 2002— National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Technical Aspects of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
2005—Chair, Innovating for Profit in Russia: Summary of a Workshop
*American Nuclear Society
The American Nuclear Society (ANS) is an international, not-for-profit organization of scientists, engineers, and industry professionals that promote the field of nuclear engineering and related disciplines.
ANS is composed of three communities: ...
*American Association of University Professors
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is an organization of professors and other academics in the United States. AAUP membership includes over 500 local campus chapters and 39 state organizations.
The AAUP's stated mission is ...
* Tau Beta Pi
* Sigma Xi
Fellow of the AAAS, the American Physical Society
The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
(APS), and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Honors and awards
1978—Distinguished Alumnus of California Polytechnic
1987—Distinguished Alumnus of the California Institute of Technology
1987—Secretary of Energy Gold Medal for Distinguished Service
1993—Elected as a member into the National Academy of Engineering
References
Publications
April 2007—Workshop Panel Report on Accelerating the Spread of Knowledge About Science and Technology: An Examination of the Needs and Opportunities (http://www.osti.gov/publications/2007/workshop.pdf)
May 2000—Workshop Report on a Future Information Infrastructure for the Physical Sciences – The Facts of the Matter: Finding, understanding, and using information about our physical world (http://www.osti.gov/physicalsciences/)
June 1995—Science, Environment and Technology Summit: A Long Term National Science Strategy—Testimony before the Subcommittee on Basic Research, Committee on Science, United States House of Representatives (http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/servlets/purl/104321-PXrd6E/webviewable/104321.pdf)
July 1990—Department of Energy National Laboratories—Testimony before the Subcommittee on Energy Research and Development, Committee on Energy And Natural Resources, United States Senate (http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/servlets/purl/6651726-JIAfxA/6651726.pdf)
April 1990—International Science and Technology Policies—Testimony before the Subcommittee on International Scientific Cooperation, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, United States House of Representatives (http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/servlets/purl/7037883-POLCgj/7037883.pdf)
1982 – Experimental Investigations of the Propagation of Surface Waves Along a Plasma Column, with M. Moisan and A. Shivarova, Plasma Physics, vol 24, No. 11, pp. 1331–1400, 1982
External links
U.S. Department of Energy
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)
Human Genome Project
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Trivelpiece, Alvin
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
American nuclear physicists
California Polytechnic State University alumni
California Institute of Technology alumni
UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty
University of Maryland, College Park faculty