William Nierenberg

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  William A. Nierenberg

William Aaron Nierenberg (February 13, 1919 – September 10, 2000) was an American physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and was director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography from 1965 through 1986. A building on that campus is named after him, as is the Nierenberg Prize.

In 1948 Nierenberg’s first academic position was Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan. From 1950 to 1965 he was Associate and then Professor of Physics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he had a very large and productive low energy nuclear physics laboratory, graduating 40 PhD’s during this time and publishing about 100 papers. During that period he took a one-year leave to serve as the director of the Columbia University Hudson Laboratory. Later, he oversaw the design and construction of the “new” physics building at Berkeley. Much later (1960-1962) he took leave once again as Assistant Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in charge of scientific affairs, where he oversaw many international studies on physics and advanced defense technologies.

In 1965 Nierenberg was asked to run one of the most prestigious oceanographic institution in the world, The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO). His background in sonar research and other naval-related science, his knowledge of and interest in geophysics dating from his college times and his many friendships in the community made him intellectually and professionally eager to go. By then he had also developed the many necessary international relationships. As SIO’s longest serving director, he quadrupled the funding for the institution and developed a fleet of five modern research vessels.

Nierenberg gained national recognition for his achievements and contributions to science. In 1965, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and to the Council of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 1979. He was also elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He served on a large number of prestigious committees, primarily after he returned from NATO. In 1971 he was appointed chairman of the National Academy of Sciences National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere and served on this committee until 1977. Nierenberg served on various panels of the Presidents' Science Advisory Committee. He was a member of the National Science Board from 1972 to 1978 and was appointed for another term from November l982 to May 1988.

Nierenberg was a consultant to the National Security Agency, and served on many military-related panels. In 1976 he was appointed one of two senior consultants to the then newly formed White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). He was a member of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Advisory Council from 1978 to 1982 and served as its first chairman. He was Chairman of the OSTP Acid Rain Peer Review Panel, whose report "Acid Rain" was published in 1984. The report encouraged the administration to curb acid rain emissions.

In October 1980, during the Carter presidency, Nierenberg was appointed by congress to chair a committee to produce a new report on the risks of global warming, which two previous reports for the Carter administration had highlighted as a potential major problem [1]. The final report was largely in line with the previous reports [2].

He subsequently became a co-founder of the George C. Marshall Institute, and outspokenly hostile to concerns about man-made climate change.

External links

• Oral History interview transcript with William Nierenberg 6 February 1986, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives
• Obituary, Daily Telegraph, August 23, 2001
• Obituary, Physics Today, June 2001
• In Memoriam: William A. Nierenberg, UCSD campus notice, September 26, 2000
• Remembering Bill Nierenberg, George C. Marshall institute website, September 12, 2000