Dr. Peter Paul
Stony Brook University & Brookhaven National Laboratory
Bio:
Peter Paul is currently Associate Vice President for Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) Affairs at Stony Brook University.
After obtaining a Ph.D. in experimental nuclear physics in Germany followed by several years at Stanford University, Peter Paul joined the Physics Department at Stony Brook in 1967. He spent the rest of his professional life at Stony Brook and at BNL teaching physics, doing research in nuclear and accelerator physics, and eventually science administration. He served as chair of the Physics Department twice, and rose to the rank of Distinguished Service Professor in 1992.
Nuclear physics at Stony Brook was and is a core program because of the university’s proximity to BNL. In partnership with his colleagues, Peter Paul built up the nuclear physics group at Stony Brook which is consistently ranked among the top four in the U.S. In 1973 he spearheaded with a small group the development, design and construction of one of two first superconducting linear accelerators in the world. This facility demonstrated that superconducting technology could be used with high reliability on a large scale in a demanding technical environment. Its design principles have since been duplicated world-wide.
From 1980 forward, Peter Paul became involved in advising the U.S. Government in the national nuclear science program as member and later chair of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee to the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. As such, he chaired the development of the 1998 Nuclear Science Long Range Plan which led to the construction of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL. Increasingly, he was then involved as advisor to several foreign Government programs, e.g. in Great Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, India and Japan. From 2000 to2007 he served as member of the Board of the German Helmholtz Association, which oversees 19 large government funded research laboratories active in all R&D disciplines.
In 1998 Peter Paul joined Brookhaven Science Associates and BNL as Deputy Director for Science & Technology until 2004. From 2001 until 2003 he served concurrently as Interim Director of BNL. He is currently a member of the BSA Board. During his tenure, the lab made major advances in its large research facilities: RHIC began its highly successful research operation, the $100-Million Center for Functional Nanomaterials began construction; the electron-ion collider was conceptualized as successor to RHIC, and the National Synchrotron Light Source-II was inserted into the DOE facilities construction plan. The $925 Million NSLS-II has just been completed. These advanced facilities assure BNL’s mission as internationally center for basic and applied science, and as a core institution for Long Island’s high-technology future.
During his career Peter Paul acquired a number of honors. Among them are Fellow of the American Physical Society and the British Institute of Physics, an Honorary Ph.D. from Dubna International University, the Order of Merit First Class from the German Government, and the selection as Long Island Entrepreneur of the Year in 2002.