The interview focuses on Isacks' training and career as a seismologist at Columbia University's Lamont Geological Observatory, covering the period before 1970. He reflects on the influence of the Department of Defense's "Project Vela Uniform," which aimed at improving seismic detection capabilities, on his career and more generally on the development of seismology in the 1960s. He also describes his contributions to the Plate Tectonics revolution.