The Tetelman Fellowship was endowed in 1979 by Damon Wells ‘58 to honor the memory of his classmate Alan S. Tetelman ‘58, ‘61PhD, a distinguished researcher who was killed in a plane crash in 1978. Gary Haller, the Becton Professor of Engineering and Applied Science and the master of Jonathan Edwards College, the Fellowship’s home base, describes the role of the Tetelman as a forum for “eminent scientists and engineers who can convey an understanding of their field to a lay audience.” Tetelman Fellows have included such legendary researchers as James Watson, who shared a Nobel Prize as one of the codiscoverers of the double-helix structure of DNA; Carl Djerassi, chemist, author, and inventor of the first birth control pill; biochemist and head of the Carnegie Institution of Washington Maxine Singer ‘57PhD; and Nobel laureate physicists Murray Gell-Mann and Sheldon Glashow. (The program also makes room for non-scientists, such as Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun and His Holiness the Dalai Lama; both were invited to speak because of their interests in the social implications of science and technology.)
Tetelman Lecture Series
2023
Elizabeth Kolbert
2018
Sheri D. Sheppard
2017
Robert Langer
2016
Jennifer A. Doudna
2014
Venki Ramakrishnan
2014
Dame Alison F. Richard
2012
Robert D. Ballard
2012
Jay Keasling
2012
Bruce Alberts
2011
Daniel S. Goldin
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2011
Sidney Altman
2010
David M. Lee
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2010
Thomas A. Steitz
Tetelman Fellows
Sir Montague Finniston 1981
Donald Kennedy 1982
Paul MacCready 1983
Richard Garwin 1984
Maxime Singer 1985
Victor Weisskopf 1985
Herbert Simon 1985
Matthew Meselson 1986
Lance Hidy 1986
Walter Gilbert 1986
Sandra Faber 1987
Tuzo Wilson 1987
Roald Hoffman 1988
Murray Gell-Mann 1989
James Watson 1989
Sir Roger Bannister 1990
Justice Harry Blackmun 1990
The Honorable Louis Sullivan 1990
D. Allan Bromley 1991
His Holiness the Dalai Lama 1991
David Baltimore 1992
Gertrude Elion 1992
Philip Morrison 1992
Oliver Sacks 1993
Carl Djerassi 1994
Leon Lederman 1994
Philip Sharp 1994
Joseph Allen 1995
Amartya Sen 1995
Benjamin Carson 1996
Jeffery Hoffman 1996
Sir John Meurig Thomas 1997
Shirley Tilghman 1997
Harold Varmus 1997
Sheldon Lee Glashow 1998
Henry Petroski 1998
Jerome Lettvin 1999
Sylvia T. Ceyer 2000
Louis Paul Latour 2000
Roger Blandford 2001
Sydney Brenner 2001
Alexander Pines 2001
Jane A. Plant 2001
Mark David 2002
Roberta Lynn Bondar 2003
Lt. Col. Catherine G. Coleman 2003
Anna L. Fisher 2003
Janet Lynn Kavandi 2003
Cathleen S. Lewis 2003
Valentina Ponomareva 2003
Margaret Rhea Seddon 2003
Harold Jaffe 2004
Robert Schlögl 2004
Michael Hawley 2005
Naomi Pierce 2005
Douglas Futuyma 2006
Steve Chu 2007
John B. Fenn 2007
Laurence Barron 2008
Raffaello D’Andrea 2008
Max Dean 2008
Robert Marc Friedman 2009
Andrew D. Hamilton 2009
David M. Lee 2010
Thomas Steitz 2010
Carl Wieman 2010
Sidney Altman 2011
Daniel S. Goldin 2011
Bruce Alberts 2012
Jay Keasling 2012
Robert D. Ballard 2012
Alison F. Richard 2014
Venki Ramakrishnan 2014
Jennifer Doudna 2016
Robert Langer 2017
Sheri D. Sheppard 2018
Elizabeth Kolbert 2023