Awards presented at Fifty‐Third Annual Meeting

Abstract

Carl Eckart entered geophysics through an auspicious incident at the outbreak of World War II. He was then, at age 40, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Chicago, having made very major contributions to the development of quantum mechanics. He found himself involved in the war effort as an administrator and researcher in the work on underwater sound, fundamental for submarine detection, which was then starting at San Diego. Eventually Eckart settled in La Jolla, a suburb of San Diego, as Professor of Marine Geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He has been in La Jolla ever since. Although by inclination he is more of a scholar than an administrator, Eckart has served his country and the University of California in a succession of administrative positions: as Director of the Marine Physical Laboratory, Director of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and as Vice Chancellor of the San Diego campus, not to mention many national committees.