Stanley George Wojcicki ( ; born Stanisław Jerzy Wójcicki, ; March 30, 1937) is a

Polish American Polish Americans ( pl, Polonia amerykańska) are Americans who either have total or partial Polish ancestry, or are citizens of the Republic of Poland. There are an estimated 9.15 million self-identified Polish Americans, representing about 2.83 ...

emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

professor and former chair of the

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

department at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in California, United States.

Early life and education

Wojcicki was born in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

, the son of Janina Wanda Wójcicka (née Kozłowska), a bibliographer, and

Franciszek Wójcicki Franciszek Wójcicki (27 January 1900 – 2 January 1983) was a Polish politician. Career He was a member of the People's Party and Polish People's Party and was elected MP during the 1947 Polish legislative election. Family His granddaught ...

, a lawyer. He and his brother fled from

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

with his mother at the age of 12, when

communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...

came to power. They eventually arrived in the United States. His father remained in Poland, and was soon imprisoned for five years for being a member of the government's main opposition party. He was never able to gain a visa to come to the United States. Wojcicki and his brother were sent to a boarding school run by the Franciscan order near

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

. He excelled in mathematics and had thought of pursuing either engineering or medicine, but decided to study physics. He attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

on a scholarship and graduated with an AB. He later attended

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

where he earned a PhD.Stanford Department of Physics: "Endowed Chairs and Professorships: Stanley G. Wojcicki Chair in Physics: First Endowed Chair in Experimental Physics Honors Beloved Professor"
retrieved September 22, 2012

Career

Wojcicki worked at the

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...

and was a

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

fellow at

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in a northwestern suburb of Gene ...

and the

Collège de France The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment (''grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ne ...

. In 1966, he joined the

physics faculty where he headed the Department of Physics from 1982–1985 and 2004–2007. Wojcicki has served as an advisor to government funding agencies (US and foreign) as well as to several high energy physics laboratories. He also headed the

High Energy Physics Advisory Panel The High Energy Physics Advisory Panel (HEPAP) is a permanent advisory committee to the United States Department of Energy and the National Academy of Sciences, created in 1967 and organized under the Federal Advisory Committee Act The Federal Adv ...

, which advises the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...

and the National Science Foundation on particle physics matters. Wojcicki led the HEPAP subpanel New Facilities for the US High-Energy Physics Program which recommended building the Super Conducting Super Collilder in 1983.

Personal life

Stanley Wojcicki is the husband of fellow educator

Esther Wojcicki Esther Denise "Woj" Hochman Wojcicki ( ; born May 26, 1941) is an American journalist, educator, and vice chair of the Creative Commons advisory council. Wojcicki has studied education and technology. She is the founder of the Palo Alto High Scho ...

, whom he met at UC Berkeley. They have three children and nine grandchildren.Esther Wojcicki
retrieved September 21, 2012 *

Susan Wojcicki Susan Diane Wojcicki ( ; born July 5, 1968) is a Polish-American business executive who is the CEO of YouTube. Her net worth was estimated at $765 million in 2022. Wojcicki has worked in the technology industry for over 20 years. She became invol ...

, CEO of YouTube. Google's first office was started in her home.USA Today: "The house that helped build Google" By Jefferson Graham
July 5, 2007 *Janet Wojcicki, assistant professor of pediatrics at UCSF. *

Anne Wojcicki Anne E. Wojcicki ( ; born July 28, 1973) is an American entrepreneur who co-founded and serves as CEO of the personal genomics company 23andMe. She founded the company in 2006 with Linda Avey and Paul Cusenza to provide the general public access t ...

, founder and CEO of the genetic testing company

23andMe 23andMe Holding Co. is a publicly held personal genomics and biotechnology company based in South San Francisco, California. It is best known for providing a direct-to-consumer genetic testing service in which customers provide a saliva sample t ...

In 2010, his daughter Anne and her then-husband,

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

co-founder

Sergey Brin Sergey Mikhailovich Brin (russian: link=no, Сергей Михайлович Брин; born August 21, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist, and internet entrepreneur, who co-founded Google with Larry Page. Brin was the ...

, endowed a $2.5 million chair in experimental physics at Stanford in her father's name.

References

External links

Scientific publications of Stanley Wojcicki
on

INSPIRE-HEP INSPIRE-HEP is an open access digital library for the field of high energy physics (HEP). It is the successor of the Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) database, the main literature database for high energy physics since the 1970 ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wojcicki, Stanley Living people 21st-century American physicists People associated with CERN Polish emigrants to the United States Harvard University alumni Stanford University Department of Physics faculty UC Berkeley College of Engineering alumni 1937 births Fellows of the American Physical Society Scientists from Buffalo, New York Winners of the Panofsky Prize People from Warsaw