Mather, John C.
Oral history interview with John Mather, 2020 May 26.
In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews John Mather, senior astrophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and senior project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. Mather recounts his childhood in rural New Jersey and the benefits of pursuing a physics education at a small school like Swarthmore. He discusses his research at Berkeley and the value of pursuing dissertation research based on an unsuccessful research experiment. Mather describes his work at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the decisions that led to his participation at NASA in the COBE satellite team that measured the heat radiation of the Big Bang. Mather narrates what it was like to learn he won the Nobel Prize for this work, and describes his current work and excitement about the James Webb Telescope.
Dr. John C. Mather is a Senior Astrophysicist in the Observational Cosmology Laboratory located at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. He is also the Senior Project Scientist on the James Webb Space Telescope. He received a bachelor's degree in physics from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania as well as a doctorate in physics from the University of California, Berkeley. Mather's research centers on infrared astronomy and cosmology. Mather shares the 2006 Nobel Price in Physics with George F. Smoot of the University of California for their work using the COBE satellite to measure the heat radiation from the Big Bang.
Mather, John C.
Cosmic Background Explorer (Satellite)
Goddard Space Flight Center
Swarthmore College
University of California, Berkeley
Big bang theory
Nobel Prize winners
Interviews.
Oral histories.
Transcripts.
Zierler, David, 1979- interviewer.
AIP-ICOS
American Institute of Physics. Niels Bohr Library & Archives. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740, USA