Cabrera, Blas.
Oral history interview with Blas Cabrera, 2021 February 9.
Interview with Blas Cabrera, Stanley Wojcicki Chair Professor of Physics at Stanford. Cabrera recounts his familys Spanish heritage, he discusses being a third-generation physicist, and he explains the circumstances of his familys arrival to the United States when he was five. He describes his childhood in Charlottesville, where his father taught at the University of Virginias Department of Physics. Cabrera describes his own undergraduate experience at UVA and the opportunities that led to his graduate admission at Stanford to work with Bill Fairbank. He discusses his research on relativistic corrections to the Cooper mass pairs and on developing low magnetic fields. Cabrera conveys the influence of Shelly Glashows ideas about the possibility that dark matter is magnetically charged particles, and he describes his postdoctoral work on the GP-B project. Cabrera describes the Valentines Day event in 1982 where there was initial excitement that he had detected a magnetic monopole, and he explains his subsequent focus on WIMPs and the broader search for dark matter. He describes his work on the international CDMS collaboration, he explains the transition from CDMS I to CDMS II, and he reviews how the project understands its goals in light of the ongoing mystery of dark matter. Cabrera discusses his tenure as department chair at Stanford and as director of the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory. At the end of interview, Cabrera reflects on accepting that he did not detect a magnetic monopole, and he surveys the accomplishments and future prospects of CDMS.
American physicist. Ph.D. physics, Stanford University (1975). Professional experience includes: National Bureau of Standards Precision Measurement Grant 1978-81; Committee on Fundamental Constants of National Research Council 1983-7; NSF Advisory Committee on Cosmology 1988; Stanford University Fellow 1988-89, 1989-90; Stanford Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching, 1990; Advisory Panel for Electronics and Electrical Engineering at NIST (formally NBS), 1991-3; Senate of Academic Council, Stanford University, 1991-92, 2007-08, 2009-10; Visiting Scholar Appointment at Balliol College, Oxford University, 1992-93; Fellow of American Physical Society (1996); Chair of Stanford Physics Department 1996-99; School of Humanities & Sciences Appointments and Promotions Committee, 1998-2000; Chair of Varian 2 Building Committee 2003-2006; Deputy Director of Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory (HEPL) 2003-2006; Director of Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory (HEPL) 2006-2009; APS WKH Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics (with Bernard Sadoulet) 2013; Elected as foreign member of Real Academia de Censias in Spain (2013).
Cabrera, Blas.
Caldwell, D. O. (David O.)
Deaver, B. S. (Bascom Sine), 1930-
Everitt, C. W. F. (C. W. Francis), 1934-
Fairbank, William Martin, 1917-1989.
Glashow, Sheldon L.
Partridge, Richard.
Cryospheric Data Management System (U.S.)
Stanford University
Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. fast
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
University of Virginia
W.W. Hansen Laboratories of Physics. High Energy Physics Laboratory
Cryostats
Quantum field theory
Satellites.
GP-B
Gyro Relativity Experiment
Interviews. aat
Oral histories. aat
Transcripts. aat
McFarland, David F.
Bay Area Low Temperature Informal Conference (BALTIC)
Zierler, David, 1979-, interviewer.
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA