B. Samuel Tanenbaum was named a Senior Sterling Fellow by Yale University and a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Fellow in 1959.
POMONA, CA, October 29, 2018 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present B. Samuel Tanenbaum, Ph.D., with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dr. Tanenbaum celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
As a youngster, Dr. Tanenbaum excelled in most subject areas, but decided to study physics when he realized that it was an easy subject for him, and, most important, he enjoyed it. After receiving a Bachelor's Degree at Brown University, he was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship in physics. New York University offered him a fellowship in applied mathematics and, though he considered accepting it, he continued his pursuit of physics at Yale University where he earned a Master of Science in 1957 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1960.
Dr. Tanenbaum focused much of his following career on research. When beginning a research project, it is difficult to know if it will yield results and if those results will prove to have useful applications. He found himself to be lucky in that his research almost always yielded results and frequently the results were useful. He likes to say, "It's good to be smart, and it's good to be rich, but it's best to be lucky." Frequently choosing research areas that fascinated him, he attributes his success to his willingness to grind out the details.
After three years of working in industry, Dr. Tanenbaum decided to try teaching and accepted a position at Case Institute of Technology. He was surprised by how much he enjoyed the process. He credits his success to the mentors he had in graduate school. His thesis advisor, David Mintzer, provided tremendous help in making the latest and most advanced research easy to comprehend. Another professor at Yale, Henry Margenau, had a talent for communicating difficult topics in a way that made them straightforward for students. Also at Yale, Peter Schultheiss taught him electrical engineering in a detailed manner that Dr. Tanenbaum mimicked in his own teaching style. Outside of personal mentors, he admires the late Italian physicist Enrico Fermi who is best known for his work building the first nuclear reactor and the atomic bomb; but who also had the rare ability to make difficult topics easy.
With a long career full of impressive accomplishments, Dr. Tanenbaum has enjoyed many highlights. In the 1960s, his career had just begun and the world's largest radar and radio telescope was still newly-built in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. In 1968, a paper was published on a class of stellar objects called pulsars that sent out short and regular pulses of light. Uncertain if these signals were from another civilization or a natural source, one of his colleagues at Cornell developed the correct theory that pulsars are rotating neutron stars. Tanenbaum followed this work, co-writing one of the first pulsar papers from the Arecibo Observatory about the discovery.
As a professor of engineering at Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Tanenbaum began the Minority Engineers Industrial Opportunities Program. This program helped high school students from the east side of Cleveland prepare for college work in engineering. Within a short time, Case Western increased the number of Black engineering students by a factor of ten. Though he moved to California in 1975, the program continues on today. This program was his second effort to foster education among minorities, his first being the Junior Scholars Program which he created with another engineering professor at Case Western. This program was not focused on any particular area of study; it simply encouraged the pursuit of college education. Dr. Tanenbaum also worked with women students to found a chapter of the Society of Women Engineers at Case Western.
Dr. Tanenbaum began a similar program for women at Harvey Mudd College where he served as a professor from 1975 to 2003 and dean of faculty from 1975 to 1993. After retiring from his role as the dean, Dr. Tanenbaum returned to full-time teaching and began research with a group at UC Irvine Medical School's Beckman Laser Institute in 1993. At the time he joined, the group was considering techniques for treatment involving the damaging of excessive blood vessels with lasers. Up until this point, they had to provide such treatments in small doses or the patient would suffer skin damage. By 1995, his group had patented the process of spraying cold liquid a fraction of a second before the laser was applied to prevent the skin damage. The patent was soon licensed by nearly every vendor that provides lasers for any skin treatment. Harvey Mudd honored him as the Norman F. Sprague Jr. Professor of Life Sciences in 1996.
After his retirement from Harvey Mudd in 2003, he was asked to serve for two years as head of the Joint Science Department that provides all science courses for three other Claremont Colleges. He then taught part-time for another eight years. He hopes to be remembered as a pretty good administrator, a somewhat better teacher, and a very good cook and caterer for faculty. Dr. Tanenbaum now lives in Mount San Antonio Gardens, a 500 resident retirement community, where he hopes to help improve the energy efficiency of the facility.
Dr. Tanenbaum was a member of the American Association of University Professors, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Engineering Education, and the American Physical Society. He is the author of "Plasma Physics," published in 1967, and contributed 75 peer-reviewed articles to professional journals from 1958 to 2003.
In addition to holding a National Science Foundation Fellowship from 1956 to 1960, he was named a Senior Sterling Fellow by Yale University and a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Fellow in 1959. In 1969, he was the recipient of the Research Award from Sigma Xi and was presented with the Wittke Teaching Award from Case Western Reserve University in 1973. Dr. Tanenbaum has previously been selected for inclusion in multiple editions of Who's Who in Finance and Business, Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Education, Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Who's Who in the West and Who's Who in the World.
In recognition of outstanding contributions to his profession and the Marquis Who's Who community, Dr. Tanenbaum has been featured on the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
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