Arthur Zajonc
Arthur Guy Zajonc (pronounced /ˈzeɪ.ənts/ ZAY-ənts) (born 11 October 1949, Boston, Massachusetts) is a professor of physics at Amherst College in Massachusetts. He is also a noted anthroposophist who served as the General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America. He held a number of dialogues with the Dalai Lama about science, spirituality and cosmology. Since january 2012, he is the president of Mind and Life Institute.[1]
Biography
He received his Bachelors of Science in Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1971. He received his Masters of Science in Physics in 1973 and his Philosophy Doctorate in Physics in 1976 at the University of Michigan as well.
Zajonc has taught at Amherst College since 1978. He was Assistant Professor of Physics 1978-1984, Associate Professor of Physics 1984-1991, and Professor of Physics 1991–present. 1976-1978 Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics at the University of Colorado and the National Bureau of Standards, Boulder, Colorado. From 1981-82 he was a Visiting Associate Professor of Physics at the École Normale Supérieure at the Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Hertzienne in Paris. In 1984 was a Visiting Research Physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics, Garching (Munich), Germany with H. Walther. 1986 he was a Visiting Scientist at the Institute for Quantum Optics at the University of Hanover in Germany. He was the Chairman for the Department of Physics at Amherst College for three different appointments: 1987-1989, 1998–2000, and 2005–present. In 1991 he was a Visiting Scientist at the Department of Physics at the University of Rochester with L. Mandel. In 1993 he was a Fulbright Professor at the University of Innsbruck, Austria teaching and doing research on the Experimental Foundations of Quantum Physics. Later that same year he was a Scholar-In-Residence at the Fetzer Institute. He was the Senior Program Director of the Fetzer Institute 1995-1997. He is the director for the Academic Program of the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society since 2004. This organization is composed of 1500 academics that support contemplative practices in higher education. In 2006 he became an Andrew W. Mellon Professor at Amherst.[2]
Zajonc held a number of dialogues with the Dalai Lama in 1997 which were later published in 2004 under his scientific coordination and editorship as Dalai Lama: The New Physics and Cosmology. He was moderator for the 2003 dialogue with the Dalai Lama at MIT.
Other accomplishments
- Co-founder of the Kira Institute.
- Past president of the Lindisfarne Association.
- Co-founder of the Fetzer Institute.
Publications
- Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind (1993,1995)
- The Quantum Challenge (2nd ed. 2005)
- Goethe's Way of Science (1998)
- Dalai Lama: The New Physics and Cosmology (2004)
- Meditation As Contemplative Inquiry: When Knowing Becomes Love (2008)