Carl Wieman, Office of Science and Technology Policy

Carl Wieman has served as associate director for science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy since September 2010. Before accepting his position at OSTP, Weiman served concurrently as professor of physics at the University of Colorado and director of collaborative science education initiatives aimed at achieving widespread improvement in undergraduate science education for the University of British Columbia. Wieman has also worked extensively on research and innovations for improving science education; he was the founding chair of the National Academy of Sciences Board on Science Education. He has received numerous awards, including the National Science Foundation’s Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award (2001), the Carnegie Foundation’s U.S. University Professor of the Year Award (2004), and the American Association of Physics Teachers’ Oersted Medal (2007) for his work on science education. Wieman received his B.S. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973 and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1977, and has conducted extensive research in atomic and laser physics. His research has been recognized with numerous awards including sharing the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001 for the creation of a new form of matter known as “Bose-Einstein condensation.”