BENT, Robert D. 1928-

PERSONAL:

Born December 22, 1928, in Cambridge, MA; son of Henry Edward (a professor of chemistry) and Florence (Demo) Bent; married Mary Alice Keating, June 9, 1956; children: Lisa Bent Scott, Jason, Alan. Ethnicity: "White." Education: Oberlin College, B.A., 1950; Rice University, Ph.D., 1954; attended Oxford University, 1962-63. Politics: Democrat. Religion: Unitarian.

ADDRESSES:

Home—1315 South Longwood Dr., Bloomington, IN 47401. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Rice University, Houston, TX, postdoctoral research associate, 1954-55; Columbia University, New York, NY, research associate, 1955-58; Indiana University, Bloomington, assistant professor, 1958-62, associate professor, 1962-66, professor of physics, 1966-95, professor emeritus, 1995—.

MEMBER:

American Physical Society (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Guggenheim fellow in England, 1962-63.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Pion Production and Absorption in Nuclei, American Institute of Physics (New York, NY), 1982.

(Editor, with Lloyd Orr and Randall Baker) Energy: Science, Policy, and the Pursuit of Sustainability, Island Press (Washington, DC), 2002.

Contributor of more than fifty articles to scientific journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Robert D. Bent told CA: "Following my doctoral work in experimental nuclear physics at Rice University and a three-year stint as a postdoctoral research associate at Columbia University, I had a thirty-seven-year teaching and research career at Indiana University in Bloomington. Near the end of my teaching career, I often taught courses on energy and environmental physics, including one titled 'Global Energy Problems: Science and Policy,' which was taught jointly with professors in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. This course was the precursor of an interdisciplinary faculty seminar on global energy problems that was sponsored by the Indiana University Institute for Advanced Study following my retirement from the physics department in 1995, and this seminar eventually led to the book Energy: Science, Policy, and the Pursuit of Sustainability."