Interview with Thomas A. Tombrello - Caltech Oral Histories

Mathematics and Astronomy (PMA) over fifty years. There is extensive
discussion of his mentoring work with Caltech undergraduate and graduate
students, including his innovative undergraduate course Physics 11 and his
perspectives on student life at Caltech. Of particular note is the discussion of his
relationship with S. E. Koonin, who went from being Tombrello’s undergraduate
advisee to his provost. Tombrello provides a wide-ranging, in-depth look at his
ten years as division chair of PMA, covering research, recruitment, fundraising,
collegial relationships within and beyond the division and with JPL, and the
evolution of PMA under his oversight. He talks about his involvement in the
design and construction of the Cahill Center for Astrophysics (dedicated in 2009)
and the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project. He describes his interactions with
five decades of Caltech presidents and provosts, institute trustees, and various
donors.
Tombrello recaps his two years as research director at Schlumberger research and
his several decades of consulting work on weapons, national security, energy, and
climate change issues at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratories. He talks about his foray into earthquake prediction research, his
research collaborations in China, his years as Caltech’s technology assessment
officer, and the emergence of entrepreneurism at Caltech in the 1990s. Anecdotes
and recollections of such notable Caltech figures as R. Bacher, J. Benton, H.
Brown, L. DuBridge, R. Feynman, W. A. Fowler, M. Gell-Mann, B. Kamb, A.
Lange, C. Lauritsen, T. Lauritsen, R. Leighton, C. Patterson, R. Sharp, and F.
Zwicky are also part of this oral history.
Administrative information
Access
The interview is partially restricted. Per agreement between Professor Tombrello
and the Caltech Archives dated July 31, 2012, portions of this interview are
closed for ten years. Closed portions are clearly marked in the transcript.
Copyright
Copyright has been assigned to the California Institute of Technology © 2012.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from the transcript must be
submitted in writing to the Head, Archives and Special Collections.
Preferred citation
Tombrello, Thomas A. Interview by Heidi Aspaturian. Pasadena, California,
December 26-31, 2010. Oral History Project, California Institute of Technology
Archives. Retrieved [supply date of retrieval] from the World Wide Web:
http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Tombrello_T
http://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechOH:OH_Tombrello_T