Contact: Raymond Brock, Physics and Astronomy, (517) 355-9200, Ext. 2120, brock@pa.msu.edu; or Tom Oswald, University Relations, (517) 355-2281, oswald@msu.edu

2/24/2004

Leon M. Lederman, winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize for physics, will speak at Michigan State University on Thursday, Feb. 26.

Lederman’s talk is at 4:10 p.m. in Room 1410 of the MSU Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building. His talk, titled “It’s time for 21^st Century Science Education,” will focus on the state of science education today, a problem he defines as a “prescription for disaster.”

Lederman currently serves as the Pritzker Professor of Science at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He is director emeritus of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and the former Eugene Higgins Professor at Columbia University.

In 1988, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, due in part to his role in the discovery that there are two kinds of neutrino, electrically neutral subatomic particles. Other honors he has received include the National Medal of Science, the Wolf Prize, the Townsend Harris Medal from City University of New York, and the 1993 Fermi Award.

Lederman’s talk is part of the Dr. Henry Blosser and Dr. Milton E. Muelder Endowed Lectureship, in the MSU Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Blosser is the founding director of the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory at MSU and a University Distinguished Professor of physics and astronomy. Muelder retired as vice president emeritus and dean of the MSU Graduate School. A long-time supporter of the university, Muelder was instrumental in bringing world-class nuclear physics to MSU.

Lederman's talk is free and open to the public.