Jonathan King’s 80th Birthday Festschrift

Introduction

The Chapters below are contributions to an 80th Birthday celebration from members of my research lab and research collaborators. The Chapters are listed in alphabetical order, except mine, which is at the end. Many of them exhibit clarity and cogency that often gets edited out of more technical papers, and are worth reading. (To view the photos included, click on the “Photos” pulldown menus.) The chapters are testimony that that the main mechanism driving scientific progress is cooperation and collaboration. Competition may occasionally contribute, but often retards progress.

Other members of the Lab who made valuable contributions to our scientific output are: Dr. Lydia Acosta-Sampson; Prof. Peter Berget; Prof. Bonnie Berger; Dr. Jeijin Chen; Prof. Patricia Clark; Prof. Yoshiko Kikuchi; Prof. Ben Fane; Dr. Fanrong Kong; Prof. Bertrand Friguet; Dr. Maria Galisteo; Dr. Carl Gordon; Prof. Dave Gossard; Prof. Sorin Istrail; Prof. Jonathan Jarvik; Prof. Jason Kreisberg; Prof. Ed Loechler; Prof. Ishara Mills-Henry; Dr. Kate Drahos Moreau; Nadia Mykolajewycz; Dr. Greg Pintilie; Prof. Welkin Pope; Prof. Peter Prevelige; Dr. Steve Raso; Prof. Anne Robinson; Dr. Nathanial Schafheimer; Prof. Robert Seckler; Dr. Ruth Griffin Shea; Donna Smith; Dr. Shannon Flaugh Thol; Prof. Takumi Takata; Prof. Carol Teschke; Prof. Claire Ting; Dr. Peter Weigele; and Dr. Fuminori Yoshida.

Thanks also to the members Editorial Board of the MIT Faculty Newsletter who have rewarded my long tenure as Chair of the Editorial Board by making available the MIT Faculty Newsletter website as host to this volume. Special thanks to  Faculty Newsletter Managing Editor David Lewis for processing and posting these chapters.

For those of you who expressed interest, but weren’t able to get such a low priority piece written, we are going to publish a second group of Chapters later in 2022. So, it is not too late to contribute.

Jonathan King, December 30, 2021.

In addition to his scientific work, my Dad Jonathan was very active on a variety of social and political fronts throughout his career. These included Science for the People, Jobs with Peace, GeneWatch, The Labor Party, the public school MCAS battles, Cambridge Residence Alliance, Mass Peace Action, and the Poor People’s Campaign. I have invited some of his colleagues in that work to send in short memoirs for Part II of the 80th birthday Festschrift. (Left out are all the electoral Campaigns he worked on, which included Jackson for President, Scientists for Obama, Scientists for Warren, and Scientists for Markey.)
Andrew King

Frank Clemente

Lisa Guisbond

Louis Kruger

Edward L. Loechler

Jill Nelson

Bruce Parry