Stories of Science, Service, and Exploration: Memoirs from the Sigma Pi Sigma Community

Last fall, I reached out to members of Sigma Pi Sigma with an invitation to share your stories . I asked you to consider documenting your physics or astronomy journey, the story of your education, your career, and your broader life as potential gifts to the future.

By putting your stories into words, you can turn them into resources to share with friends and family and potentially with others in the community and future historians through AIP’s Niels Bohr Library and Archives.

I am delighted to share a bit of some of what we received back from that call to action. We are grateful to now have added five compelling personal stories, each from a member of the Sigma Pi Sigma community, to the collections of AIP’s Niels Bohr Library and Archives.

Below is a list and some short information about each of these members and their stories.

• In Career Musings: Recollections and Ruminations on Space Research , Joseph Alexander, shares out about his work at NASA and his transition from space scientist to science policy leader.
• In A Physicist in Medicine and Biology , Brad Roth, shares out about the role that science fiction played in inspiring his career journey along with his work with magnetic fields and medical physics at NIH.
• In What Do You Want To Be When YOU Grow Up: The Memoir of a Physicist , Philip Kepner, traces his roots from Logan, Utah through physics, ROTC, and a career shaped by both love of science.
• In Daddy’s Dream: Memoirs of a Woman in the Electronics Industry, Last Half of the 20th Century 1943-2024 Edna Weigel, who forged a career in the electronics industry at a time when women were rarely welcome there, speaks candidly about integrity and perseverance.
• Michael Shlesinger, gifted us a copy of his book, An Unbounded Experience in Random Walks with Applications , which includes both an exploration of random walk theory and recollections of experiences working at IBM and the Office of Naval Research.

Each of these memoirs is a window into not just the science, but the people behind it. I invite and encourage you all to explore their stories.

Thank You and an Open Invitation

To Brad, Joe, Phillip, Michael, and Edna—thank you. Thank you for your openness, your insight, your humor, and your courage in sharing your journeys and stories. These memoirs are now part of our collective legacy, and the collections of AIP’s Niels Bohr Library and Archives are now richer because of you.

If you’re reading this and feeling that tug of memory, we invite you to consider composing and offering your own voice. Your story—whether still unfolding or decades in the making—can be a significant addition to our growing historical record. The easiest way to do this is to just write up your story in whatever word processing tool you like and to generate a PDF of it and email it to us to review and consider as a potential addition to our collection. We accept stories of wide ranging lengths, ranging anywhere between ten to five hundred pages.

If you take this up, please consider including relevant personal photos and images that can help bring your story to life. You can send your story over to me at towens@aip.org . I will get back to you soon after you share your story and loop in Melaine Mueller and Allison Rein, the leadership team for the Niels Bohr Library and Archives. After we review your story to confirm it fits with the overall collection development policies for the library, which is to document 20th and 21st century physical sciences, we will be in touch to confirm the terms of use and access for your story.

If you would like to stay tuned about all the new items and resources we are adding to the Niels Bohr Library and Archives collections, and other stories about the history of the physical sciences, consider subscribing to AIP’s new free monthly and weekly history update newsletters .