Geoff Bodine has been a consistent force in NASCAR auto racing since the early 1980's. He has 18 career NASCAR Winston Cup Race Wins and 37 poles.

Bodine began racing at age five in the micro midget class in New York. After graduating from high school, he then turned to modified racing and set a Guiness Book record of 55 wins in a single season for modified racing.

Bodine enjoyed racing in the modified division but soon wanted more. His first Winston Cup start came in 1979 and his first Winston Cup Season in 1982. He received the Rookie of the Year in 1982 for his extraordinary first season. He won the Daytona 500 in 1986 and was the International Race of Champions winner in 1987. Along with his 18 NASCAR Winston Cup Wins, Bodine also has six Busch Grand National race wins.

Bodine introduced modern-day power steering to NASCAR Winston Cup in 1981, and later introduced the full-faced helmets. In his spare time, he enjoys riding his Harley and watching Dallas Cowboy football. He works with the Make-A-Wish Foundation for ill children and several other charities. Geoff Bodine says if he wasn't a race car driver, he'd want to be an astronaut.
Climb to Fame
NASCAR Winston Cup Race Car Driver - introduced modern day power steering and full face helmets to NASCAR racing.
Work History
1969-1979 Modified racing. Set Guiness Book record of 55 wins in a season for modified raceing.

1979 First Winston Cup Start

1979-1982 Busch series and modified racing driver

1982 First Winston Cup Season - Rookie of the Year

1982-Present NASCAR Winston Cup Racing Driver

1987 International Race of Champions Winner

1986 Daytona 500 Winner
Affiliations
National Assocation of Auto Racers
Awards
Geoff Bodine has also won numerous Awards

Werner Karl Heisenberg, the founder of matrix mechanics, grew up in Germany during World War I. Although the First World War had little effect on young Heisenberg, the Second World War proved different. Heisenberg and other German physicists were taken prisoner by American troops during World War II and sent to England. They were returned to Germany in 1946.

Although Heisenberg worked in nuclear physics, his greatest work occurred in the field of quantum mechanics. He founded matrix mechanics, the earliest version of quantum mechanics, and published his works in The Physical Principles of Quantum Theory in 1928. His theory earned him the 1932 Nobel Prize. Heisenberg is probably best known for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, a fundamental property of quantum physics that proved so essential to the world of science that it carries his name.

Heisenberg's other awards include the Order of Merit and Grand Cross for Federal Services. He was a member of the Royal Society of London and the Academies of Sciences of several countries. After his college graduation, Heisenberg worked with scientists Max Born and Niels Bohr, both of whom were famous in their own right for their scientific work. Heisenberg worked as the director of the Max Planck Institute until his death of kidney cancer in 1976.
Climb to Fame
"He invented matrix mechanics, the precursor to quantum mechanics. He is probably best known for his Uncertainty Principle (1927)"
Work History
"1958-1976 Director of Max Plank Institute, Munich 1941-1958 Director Max Plank Insitute, Gottingen 1927-1941 Professor, University of Munich 1924-1927 Assistant to Niels Bohr 1923 Assistant to Max Born"
Affiliations
"Royal Society of London, American Academy of Science and the Academies of science of Gottingen, Bavaria, Rome, Netherlands, Saxony, Sweden, Norway, Prussia, Romania, Spain."
Awards
Werner Heisenberg has also won numerous Awards

General Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager was born in Myra, West Virginia, on February 13, 1923. He enlisted as a private in the Army Air Corps in September of 1941 and, after serving briefly as an aircraft mechanic, entered enlisted pilot training in September 1942. He graduated as an enlisted flight officer from Luke Field, Ariz., in March, 1943, and was assigned to the 363rd Fighter Squadron (357th Fighter Group), at Tonopah, Nev., where he flew P-39s.

In November 1943, his unit was sent to England where he entered combat flying a P-51 Mustang. He downed a German aircraft before being shot down over occupied France during his eighth mission on March 5,1944. He evaded capture and managed to convince Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to permit him to return to combat with his squadron. He flew 56 more combat missions during which he shot down 11 more German aircraft (including five ME 109's during a single mission on Oct. 12, 1944). He returned to the United States in February 1945 and was assigned to Perrin Field, Texas, as a basic flying instructor. Then, in July 1945, he was assigned as a maintenance officer to the Flight Test Division at Wright Field, Ohio – an assignment which was destined to lead to a major turning point in his career.

In 1946, he graduated from the Flight Performance School (initial designation of the USAF Test Pilot School) at Wright Field and, in 1947, Boyd selected him as project pilot for one of the most important series of flights in history. In late summer 1947, he was sent to Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards AFB) to fly the rocket-powered Bell X-1. After launch from a B-29, on Oct. 14, 1947, he accelerated to a speed of Mach 1.06 at 42,000 feet and shattered the myth of the once-dreaded "sound barrier" forever. Spectacular though it was, Yeager' first supersonic flight represented just the beginning of a seven-year career at Edwards (1947-54) during which he would establish himself as one of the truly legendary figures among the world's fraternity of test pilots.

In October 1954, he was assigned to command the 417th Fighter Squadron, first in Germany and then in France. Returning to the United States in September 1957, he served as commander of the 1st Fighter Squadron at George AFB, Calif.

After graduating from the Air War College in June of 1961, he returned to Edwards where, in July 1962, he was selected to serve as commandant of the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School (designation of the USAF Test Pilot School from 1961 to 1972) where he was responsible for the training of U.S. military astronaut candidates.

In July, 1966, he assumed command of the 405th Fighter Wing at Clark Air Base in the Philippines. During this tour, he flew 127 combat missions over Vietnam. In February, 1968, he took command of the 4th Tactical Fighter Wing at Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., and in February 1968, led its deployment to Korea during the Pueblo crisis. In July, 1969, he became vice commander of the 17th Air Force, at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, and then, in January, 1971, he was assigned as U.S. defense representative to Pakistan. On June 1, 1973, he commenced his final active duty assignment as director of the AF Safety and Inspection Center at Norton AFB, Calif. After a 34-year military career, he retired on March 1, 1975. At the time of his retirement, he had flown more than 10,000 hours in more than 330 different types and models of aircraft.

The magnitude of his achievements may be surmised from the fact that he has been the recipient of every major award in the field of flight – from the Collier Trophy to the Harmon International Trophy and the Federation Aeronautique International Gold Medal – as well as the highest honors that his own nation can accord, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a special peacetime Medal of Honor.

Indeed, those achievements have earned him a place in that small pantheon of aviators which includes such names as Lindbergh and Doolittle.
Work History
1941-1973 AirForce United States. Held different positions including test pilot, instructor, and captain. Retired in 1973.
Awards
Chuck Yeager has also won numerous Awards

Damon Hill has made a name for himself in Formula One racing by winning the World Championship in 1996. He is also a four-time winner of the British Formula Three.

Growing up, Hill watched his father Graham race successfully in the champ car series. His father won two world championships, the Indy 500, and Le Mans 24 hour race. Hill attended business school for a while, but his love of racing won out over school. In 1979, Hill began racing motorcycles, winning over 40 races, and moved up to race car driving in 1984. His first full Formula Three season was in 1985 and his first Formula One season was in 1992.

Hill's success comes from his determination and desire to win. He won the British Formula Three in 1986, 1987, and 1988 and won the big one in 1996 by becoming the world champion in Formula One Racing. Hill raced between 15 and 20 races a season and finished in the top 10 in almost every race. He has raced with several different teams and was always a threat in every race.

Hill announced his retirement in the fall of 1999 after a disappointing season. In his spare time he enjoys playing golf, tennis, motorcycling, and guitar playing.
Climb to Fame
Formula One Race Car Driver - 1996 Formula One Champion
Work History
(1996) World Champion Formula One.

(1988) British Formula 3 winner.

(1987) British Formula 3 winner.

(1986) British Formula 3 winner.

(1984-1999) Race Car Driver.

(1979-1984) Motorcycle Racer.
Awards
Damon Hill has also won numerous Awards

J. Robert Oppenheimer, born in New York City on April 22, 1904, is known today as the the “Father of the Atomic Bomb.” Oppenheimer attended the Ethical Culture school in New York, then received his BA from Harvard University in 1925. From there he traveled to Europe, first studying at Cambridge University and eventually receiving his doctoral degree from the University of Gottingen in Germany.

During his career, Oppenheimer taught at two prestigious California universities, both at Berkeley and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. During World War II, he worked on the Manhattan Project, the military name for the group that produced the world's first atomic bomb. Oppenheimer’s work involved establishing a chain reaction with uranium 235, or plutonium with fast neutrons. After the war he moved to Princeton, where he became the director of the Institute for Advanced Study. He served as the chairman of the board of scientific advisors of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1952. The following year he was denied a government security clearance because of his strong stance against nuclear weapons. Oppenheimer’s background caused a fear that he might still have ties to Germany.

Oppenheimer married Katherine Puening Harrison in 1940, and they had two children, Peter and Katherine. Later in his career, he was presented with the Fermi Award by the Atomic Energy Commission. Oppenheimer died of throat cancer on February 18, 1967, in Princeton New Jersey.
Work History
1947-1966 Princeton University, Princeton, N.J., director of Institute for Advanced Study,

1946-1952 chairman of general advisory committee of United Nations Atomic Energy Commission

1942-1945 director of U.S. atomic energy laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M

1929-1947 began as associate professor, became professor of physics University of California, Berkeley,.
Affiliations
American Physical Society (president, 1948), National Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Philosophical Society, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (fellow), Royal Society (fellow), Royal Danish Academy, Brazilian Academy, Japanese Academy (honorary member), Phi Beta Kappa
Awards
Robert Oppenheimer has also won numerous Awards

Frederick Reines was born March 16, 1918 in Paterson, New Jersey, to Israel and Gussie (Cohem) Reines. He attended Union Hill High School and received his Bachelor's degree from Stevens Insitute of Technology in 1939. Mr. Reines earned his M.E. and M.S. degrees from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey and his Ph.D. from New York University in 1944. He was a member and then Group Leader in the theoretical division of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory from 1944 to 1959. He was a Professor and Head of the Physics Department at Case Institute of Technology from 1959 to 1966 and Professor and founding Dean of Physical Sciences at UCI. Frederick married Sylvia Samuels on August 30, 1940. He had two children, Robert G. Reines who currently lives in Ojo Sarco, New Mexico and Alisa K. Cowden who lives in Trumansburg, New York.

Professor Reines' work has been recognized by membership in the National Academy of Sciences and many other awards including the National Medal of Science. In 1995 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the detection and study of the neutrino. He received several honorary degress and wrote a book called the Effects of Atomic Weapons in 1950. Frederick Reines died on August 26, 1998 in Orange County, California. His wife Sylvia and children are still alive.
Work History
1988-Present professor emeritus, University of California, Irvine

1987-1988 Distinguished professor physics, University of California, Irvine

1970- Present Profesor of Radiology University of California, Irvine

1966-1974 founding dean physics University of California, Irvine

1966-1988 professor of physics University of California, Irvine

1959-1966 professor of physics, head dept. physics department, Case Inst. Tech

1951 dir., Los Alamos Experiments Op. Greenhouse, Eniwetok

1944-1959 :Mem. staff, group leader Theoretical divsn., Los Alamos Sci. Lab
Affiliations
Fellow Am. Phys. Soc. (W.K.H. Panofsky prize 1992), AAAS , Am. Acad. Arts and Scis.; mem. NAS, Am. Assn. Physics Tchrs., Argonne U. Assn. , Russian Acad. Sci. (fgn. mem.), Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, Tau Beta Pi.
Awards
Dr Frederick Reines has also won numerous Awards

Dr. Jean Baptiste Gabriel Dausset was born in Toulouse, France, and received his medical degree from the University of Paris in 1943. He has been called one of the great gentlemen of science; hard-working, insightful and modest.

In World War II, he interrupted his scientific endeavors to go to North Africa and fight with the Free French. Before leaving Paris, he turned over all his identification papers to a fellow scientist at the Pasteur Institute, a Jew who had survived the war by passing himself off as Jean Dausset.

In 1948, Dr. Dausset was a fellow in hematology at the Harvard Medical School, and he was a fellow in immunohematology the next year. He became associate professor of medicine at the University of Paris in 1962, then full professor and director of the immunohematology laboratory at St. Louis Hospital, also in Paris, in 1969. In 1970-71, he spent his sabbatical working with Dr. Rapaport in the Department of Surgery at the New York University School of Medicine. In 1979 he was named to the chair of experimental medicine at the prestigious College de France.

A renowned scientist, Dr. Dausset is also an art expert and was once co-owner of an Impressionist gallery, Le Gallerie du Dragon. He and his wife, Rosita, have two children, Enric and Irene.

In addition to the Wolf Prize, Dr. Dausset's honors include the 1970 Stratton Award of the International Hematology Society, the 1970 Scientific Grant Prize of the City of Paris and the 1971 Karl Landsteiner Award from the American Association of Blood Banks. He received the Nobel Prize in 1980 for his research contributing to the progress in human organ transplant.
Work History
1984-Present Director, Human Polymorphism Study Center

1977-1987 prof. exptl. medicine, Coll. de France, Paris

1969-1948 Director research unit on immunogenetics, Hopital Saint-Louis, Paris,

1963-1977 Professor Immunohematology, University of Paris

1950-1963 Director Laboratory, National Transfusion Center

1946-1950 intern, then resident in internal medicine and hematology, Paris Mcpl. Hosps.
Affiliations
Mem. Academie des Sciences de l'Institut de France, Am. Acad. Arts and Sci., NAS (Washington).
Awards
Jean Dausset has also won numerous Awards

Sylvester James Gates, Jr. has made a career out of "going where no man has gone before”. For the past 20 years, he has been on the leading edge of exploring and trying to explain the basic building blocks of the universe. His work in the area of mathematics and physics has led to "four notable contributions and many smaller ones to the creation of a new theory that promises to finally explain the ultimate nature of the universe," according to the Washington Post. This theory is called superstring theory.

Gates has taught at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Howard University, and the University of Maryland at College Park. He has written one book and edited two others. He has published more than 120 research articles in dozens of the world's most important physics journals. He has given numerous presentations about his research to both fellow researchers and the general public.

Gates was born on December 15, 1950, in Tampa, Florida. His father, Sylvester James Gates, Sr. was a career military man in the U.S. Army for 24 years, before retiring to work for the postal service and being a union organizer. Because of his father's work, Jim Gates, along with his younger sister and two younger brothers, moved often during their youth. Gates had lived in six cities by the time he reached the sixth grade. When Gates was 11 years old, his mother, Charlie Engels Gates, died of cancer.

When Gates was ready to begin the sixth grade his family moved to Orlando, Florida. It was the first time that he had to attend a segregated school. "I had been used to living with people from many different cultures," Gates said in Outlook. "It was not an issue in my life. Suddenly we were moved to an environment in which we were forced to go to all-black schools." Gates went on to say that he had not encountered racism until that time.

Though Gates always did well in school, he almost did not attend college. Though several colleges had contacted him about attending their school, Gates was afraid to apply for fear of being rejected. "I came from an intact family with a father who was an excellent role model," said Gates in Outlook. "And yet by the time I was a senior graduating from high school I had bought into the idea that this society would not afford me the opportunities it did for other bright kids."

Gates's father eventually convinced him to apply, and, happily, he was accepted at the MIT, one of the most academically exclusive colleges in the country. Gates completed all of his education there, receiving bachelor's degrees in both physics and mathematics and a Ph.D. in physics. His accomplishments were made possible in part through a National Merit Scholarship, loans, and jobs. He then went on to earn post doctoral fellowships at both Harvard and the California Institute of Technology.
Work History
1988-Present professor of Physics

1991-1993 Howard University, professor and physics department chair

1984-1988 University of Maryland at College Park, associate professor of physics,

1982-1984 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, assistant professor of applied mathematics
Affiliations
National Society of Black Physicists, (president, 1992-94); American Physical Society, (general councillor, 1997-2001).
Awards
Dr Jim Gates Jr has also won numerous Awards