James Trefil: Biographical Sketch

James Trefil is Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Physics at George Mason University. Physicist and author, Dr. Trefil, is known for his writing and his interest in teaching science to nonscientists. He has served as Contributing Editor for Science for USA TODAY Weekend and as a regular contributor and science consultant for Smithsonian and Astronomy Magazines. In addition, Dr. Trefil was a science commentator and member of the Science Advisory Board for National Public Radio and for numerous PBS productions, and as Principal Science Consultant to the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. He is currently Chief Science Consultant to the McDougal-Littell Middle School Science Project. He held postdoctoral, visiting, and junior faculty appointments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), Laboratory for Nuclear Sciences at MIT, German Electron Synchrotron Laboratory (Hamburg), University of Illinois, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory before joining the faculty at University of Virginia. He held several appointments as visiting scholar at the Department of Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a former Guggenheim Fellow. He was a Science Foundation Fellow while working on his graduate degrees. He has served as a committee member on two previous NRC studies; one convened under the Board on Earth Sciences and Resources and one convened under the Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications. Dr. Trefil earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in theoretical physics at Stanford University. He received a B.S. in Physics from the University of Illinois and both a B.A. and M.A. at Oxford University.