Lee Alvin DuBridge


Lee Alvin DuBridge was an American educator and physicist, best known as president of the California Institute of Technology (1946–1969.

Background

Lee Alvin DuBridge was born on September 21, 1901, in Terre Haute, Indiana. His father was Fred DuBridge, a football coach at Indiana State Normal School. He graduated from Cornell College in 1922, and then began a teaching assignment at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, from which he received an M.A. degree in 1924 and a Ph.D. in 1926. DuBridge continued his academic work at the California Institute of Technology, as assistant then associate professor in the Washington University in St. Louis Department of Physics, and the University of Rochester.

Career

Academia

At Rochester, DuBridge began a long career as an academic administrator, serving as dean of the faculty of arts and sciences. On leave from Rochester between 1940 and 1946, he became the founding director of the Radiation Laboratory at MIT. In 1946, DuBridge began serving as president of the California Institute of Technology through 1969.

Civil service

DuBridge servered as presidential Science Advisor under President Harry S. Truman from 1952-53 and under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953-55, and under President Richard Nixon from 1969-70.

Associations

DuBridge served on boards for: RAND Corporation, National Science Board, Western College Association, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Air Pollution Foundation, Institute for Defense Analysis, Rockefeller Foundation, National Science Board, Board of Governors for the Los Angeles Town Hall, Edison Foundation, KCET, Huntington Library, and National Educational Television.

Personal and death

DuBridge died of pneumonia at a retirement home in Duarte, California, on January 23, 1994.

Awards