Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
PORTRAIT OF INNOVATION: ROBERT H. SOCOLOW
MARTHA DAVIDSON
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight
—Robert Frost, “Two Tramps in Mud Time”
Robert Socolow recites these lines from a favorite poem.The verses, which
he first encountered in high school, reverberate in his life. Socolow, a physi-
cist, is a former director of Princeton University's Center for Energy and
Environmental Studies, the present editor of the
Annual Review of Energy
and the Environment,
and a pioneer of energy efficiency research. Though
drawn to science from an early age, he has also had a lifelong love of the
humanities, especially the arts and languages, and a keen interest in other
cultures.These diverse perspectives have led him to pose challenging ques-
tions about the environment and to foster multi-disciplinary efforts to
answer them.
Born in New York in 1937, Socolow, the eldest of three children,
acquired strong ethical values from both home and school. His mother, a
remedial reading specialist, cultivated in him an appreciation of music and
museums. His father, an attorney who wrote an early text on radio broad-
casting law, provided a role model for community service through his work
with Jewish organizations.The family's involvement with Reconstruction-
ism, an emerging modernizing movement in Judaism, was an important
influence. Socolow attended Fieldston, a high school of the Society for Eth-
ical Culture. “Between Reconstructionism and Ethical Culture,” he says, “I
got a double dose of liberal values: public service, internationalism, anti-
prejudice, pro-science, anti-sectarian, pro-rationality.”
It was school, too, that nourished his interest in science. Although there
were no scientists in his family, Socolow had inspiring science teachers at
