KISHIN MOORJANI - Johns Hopkins University...Apr 04, 2000 · Moorjani: NEAR is actually an acronym...
Transcript of KISHIN MOORJANI - Johns Hopkins University...Apr 04, 2000 · Moorjani: NEAR is actually an acronym...
KISHIN MOORJANI 4 April 2000
Mame Warren, interviewer
Warren: This is Mame Warren. I'm at Evergreen House in Baltimore, Maryland, with Dr. Kishin
Moorjani, which is a lovely name. I love your name.
Moorjani: Thank you.
Warren: So your association with Johns Hopkins goes back a ways. Tell me how you came and
what brought you here.
Moorjani: Well, actually, our family association goes even beyond my association with Johns
Hopkins, because my wife was a graduate student in the Department of the Romance languages,
which later on was divided. Now it's back as a Department of Romance Languages. She was a
graduate student there in the mid '60s, and it was actually Hopkins which made it possible for her
to go to Paris for a year. They started a program. That was the first batch of students they were
sending to Paris along with a professor. Her professor used to be a very eminent man, Professor
Rene Girard. And Romance languages was one of the major departments in this country, it was
considered the best in the country. They started a program aboard, and she went with them.
I had just finished my Ph.D. and found a job in Paris, so I sort of tagged along, really to
follow my spouse, a man following a woman, and not the other way around, as happens so often.
When we were coming back, I was offered a job at Applied Physics Lab at the Johns Hopkins
University, so that's how I came, and that was thirty-three years ago.
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Warren: What were you doing there at that point?
Moorjani: I was hired as a theoretical physicist. That's why my profession was. So I was doing
theoretical work in condensed matter sciences at that stage.
Warren: Describe what APL was like when you arrived.
Moorjani: Well, APL in many ways has not changed, and in many ways it has changed
dramatically. It has changed, for example, the facilities, the number of buildings is much larger. I
think the total square footage available is even more than double what it was thirty-three years
ago, but the number of people who work there have not changed. The founders of the Applied
Physics Laboratory, I think in their great wisdom, had said that they put a limit that they would
not hire more than 2,800 people, and this was in the days when APL was being offered any
amount of money, essentially, to do lots of different things, and they had an extremely good
reputation. But these people saw it and they did not want to dilute their efforts. They wanted a
particular focus, which they achieved by putting that sort of a limit, instead of growing to double
the size which they very easily could have. So APL has stuck to that limit. There are a few
resident subcontractors which fluctuate, but they have essentially been there.
Like other places, APL has transformed. One of the major transformations you see all over
the nation, all over the world, and which you also see at APL is that when I went there, physical
sciences were big. Physics was growing. There were lots of exciting things that were happening.
So research at APL was very physics-oriented. Now, of course, we know that information
sciences and information technology are the fields which are booming. Not to say that there are
no exciting things happening in physics. A great deal of exciting things are happening in physics.
But there is more and more emphasis on computer software, how to manage information, how to
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manage knowledge and all that. So that, of course, has affected APL. So the emphasis in that
sense has changed. Some of the work which people did for the Navy, they continue to do it, but,
of course, with different bents, more modernized version of what they were doing.
But I think the big change at APL in the last-since I've been there, but particularly in the
last decade has been in the Space Department. The Space Department was started immediately
after the Sputnik went up, and based on a great discovery which was made in the research center
of the Applied Physics Laboratory, which essentially is now the basis of what is known as GPS,
Global Positioning System, but in recent years the Space Department has moved so vigorously,
both in the DOD (Department of Defense] work, but, more importantly, in the NASA work. They
were given one of the first experiments which do which NASA in the past had restricted these
experiments only to their only laboratory. I'm referring to a Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous
which took place on the 14th of February, Valentine's Day this year. This is a tremendous feather
in the cap of the space scientists at APL.
Warren: Tell me more about that.
Moorjani: In what way would you like to know more? Technical details or would you really like
toknow-
Warren: Tell me why it's a feather in their cap. Tell me how it fits into the overall-
Moorjani: This is a major, major, major experiment. Imagine an asteroid which is hurling
through space, like we are hurling through space, and which is hundreds of millions of miles away.
You shoot something up from this little Earth to rendezvous with this asteroid, so you have to
calculate, because it takes about two years for what we shoot up to get in the vicinity of the
asteroid. The path that it follows is not just a simple path that you shoot up and something is
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waiting for you to receive this satellite. It's a very complex path which actually has to come back
to Earth and get sort of more energy from the gravitational force to get off to this rendezvous.
It's absolutely, I think, breathtaking to see that something which was fired off so far ahead
of time to have a rendezvous with something which is so distant and that it actually does take
place. It gives you great faith in the laws of physics. It gives you great admiration for the people
who do this sort of work, from the people who calculate these orbits and to engineers and
scientists who actually put the entire equipment together, the satellite together and various stages
of it, and then to have a rendezvous, this is going to give rise to a great deal of science. There are
enough sensors so that we can try and find out what the composition, for example, of that
asteroid is.
This all has effect. This is not just only for curiosity. It will be good enough to do just for
curiosity, but what we learn from this will have a great deal of effect on our knowledge of the way
the universe came about, what was the origin of these asteroids, and, in a sense, what was our
own origins of the planetary system and beyond. It's an extremely exciting thing.
APL has gotten into these things in a much bigger way, and they've been remarkably
successful. We have a number of programs which NASA has given the Space Department at APL
having to do with visiting various-a Contour program which is a visit to various asteroids. There
is a Messenger program which is visiting Mercury to probe the atmosphere of Mercury. And
NASA just announced a large grant again to the Space Department. I think it's really taken off.
So that is the civilian part, if you like, of APL.
Warren: One thing that I'd like you to clarify for me is the relationshiir-1 get confused about
what APL does and what the physicists at Homewood do. I was here for the launching of FUSE
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[?],and that was very exciting. That was a Homewood project? Could you help me understand?
Like the Hubble Telescope.
Moorjani: The thing is, both are, of course, very independent entities. Both do their separate
projects. They are both intellectually very vibrant and stimulating. But once in a while they do
things together. APL has a huge facility for actually building satellites. APL is quite capable of
essentially going from conceiving a mission to actually following it through all the engineering
aspects and actually delivering a satellite which can be put on a rocket to be sent off into space.
Physics department, or the Space Telescope Institute, do not have these facilities for
building satellites, so at various times there have been collaborations where APL may have built a
particular instrument on a large project. They may have built a satellite for people on campus.
Normally these are large projects, are normally just not Hopkins, but there are other universities
or other industries also involved. So that has been an overlap. But, of course, they're largely very
independent organizations.
Warren: So, for example, the Hubble Telescope, was APL involved in that at all?
Moorjani: Oh, gee, I don't want to mislead you. Hubble Telescope was largely-I mean, the
mirror was largely built by Perkin-Elmer, and since it was such a disaster, I don't want to be
involved. [Laughter]
Warren: Then there's something called the HUT?
Moorjani: The Hopkins Ultraviolet Telescope. We definitely were involved in that.
Warren: Tell me about that.
Moorjani: I don't know terribly much about HUT except that we did build certain aspects of
this Ultraviolet Telescope at APL. I can get you that information, definitely.
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Warren: I'll send you an email to remind you about that.
Moorjani: Good.
Warren: I would like to understand more about that.
Moorjani: Sure.
Warren: I have a picture of it, and I want to make sure what I say is correct.
Moorjani: One of the things which, by the way, you know the Space Department just celebrated
its fortieth anniversary, and we did a Technical Digest issue on that, dedicated to the fortieth
anniversary of the Space Department. It's a magnificent document because it tells you not only
about how it came about, what has been achieved, and this is not only these highly visible things
like NEAR or things like that, but there have been some world-class research done at APL in the
space sciences. So it talks some of that also. But also it's an extremely forward-looking document
and tells you what essentially APL is going to do in the next decade or so. So it's available online,
actually. I think I brought a copy of that.
Warren: I'd love to see that.
Moorjani: I felt that you might want to see that.
Warren: Thank you. That would be great. Now, help me understand a name like NEAR, is that
an acronym for something?
Moorjani: NEAR is actually an acronym for Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous. Actually, Tom
Krimigis, who is the head of the Space Department, was a student of Van Allen, who is now in his
eighties and he's at University oflowa, emeritus. Tom was telling me that when he told Van Allen
about calling it NEAR, Van Allen said, "You could have just as well called it FAR." [Laughter]
Far Asteroid Rendezvous. Since asteroid is far. So, yes, NEAR is an acronym.
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Warren: That's great. I must tell you, when I started probing around in the Technical Digest
online, I was so happy to find the piece you did on Van Allen's years at APL. I have a picture of
him here. I printed it out. I haven't read it yet. But that's going to give me the answers I need.
Moorjani: Well, you know, Van Allen, as that article points out, this is again done for the fiftieth
anniversary of the research center. The research center was actually started on the first of April
1947, so we just passed its fifty-third anniversary. But three years ago we did a Technical Digest
issue on that, and what I wanted to do was to try and get some articles from people who had
retired or had left APL, but had contributed a great deal to the scientific and engineering
knowledge that one has not only at APL, but by this I mean globally. And Van Allen had worked
at APL and had some of his initial experiments at APL. The other article which was there was by
[William H.] Guier and [George C.] Weiffenbach, which, of course, told beautifully how they
used this first as Sputnik fired in 1957, October of 1957, how did they use the signal from that to
come up with-they did their research and then used to be a man called Frank McClure, who
essentially turned their findings into creating a navigational system. This was the navigational
system that the entire world uses now. This is what I mean, this is a predecessor of GPS. Now
people are having handheld GPS meters that tell them where they are within some feet. But it's
interesting to see what sort of research led to it.
Research is always something which is the result or cannot really be foreseen. If you think
about lasers or think about transistors, the people who contributed to them, the research on which
these things are based, researchers were not looking for something which will be very effective in
doing operations on the eye, which lasers are doing. And lasers are so prevalent these days, you
know. I mean, you go to a supermarket and there are these laser scanning devises. So lasers are
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being used from the tiniest of things like scanning devices and pointers to these surgical
instruments, and on to weapons. You probably heard about lasers [unclear] weapon. But believe
me, when Einstein was trying to study what is called spontaneous emission of radiation, this was
the farthest thing from his mind. Even in 1960, I remember when the lasers became possible, it
was a joke to say that laser is a solution in search of a problem. But to see what has come out.
Similar stories can be told about transistors. So, very exciting to get involved in research.
Warren: I'm pleased that you're making the allusion to, connection to biomedical research,
because that's certainly something that I think touches on other parts of Johns Hopkins.
Moorjani: That's right.
Warren: Can you talk about that?
Moorjani: Well, again, it really goes back, the relationship, for foresight of people like Ralph
Gibson and Frank McClure. These are remarkably successful people doing work for the security
of the nation, but they were also restless minds, and they were not just interested necessarily in
doing one thing. They were interested in seeing what one has learned from some field that would
be applicable to some entirely different field. So considering that Hopkins has a world-class
medical school, there were some conversations which took place. As far as I remember, Ralph
Gibson actually was quite active in the formation of the Department of Biomedical Engineering,
which now, as you know, is one of the departments at Hopkins which is number one in the nation.
So there has been a number of projects between the medical school and Applied Physics
Laboratory. For example, one of the things which came out-space science, you know, when you
send up a satellite, you pay attention to a lot-among lots of things, the major thing you want to
do is you must reduce weight, because it takes more power to put a heavier thing into orbit
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[unclear], and to reduce weight you must miniaturize things. So, lots of miniaturization of devices
took place because one is driven by this constraint in space. But on the other hand, this
miniaturization can be useful on other things, like in medicine. So there are a number of people
from the Space Department who actually were such experts at miniaturizing devices for sending
them into space, but they also miniaturized devices for heart pacers or for other type of things
which are useful in human health.
There is now, for the last-so there's always been some connection with the School of
Medicine doing work on some very fundamental things like the blood flow, to the very,
very-what would we call application-oriented things. I think some of the people at APL were
helpful to Wilmer Eye Institute in setting up some of the initial laser work which is being done at
the institute. And this goes on.
About two years ago, two and a half, three years ago, APL started a new institute for
advanced-I think it's called Institute for Advanced Science and Technology in Medicine,
IASTM, which has tried to do work in the field of biomedical and biomedicine research and
technology at APL, but also collaborating with the medical school, essentially to see what their
needs are, where can APL help the medical school and [ unclear] and joint research projects and
technology [Wiclear] projects.
Warren: Great. Another name, going back to that connection with Homewood, a couple of
names of people have come up who just fascinate me. I don't know much about them. Did you
ever have any connection with Bill Fastie?
Moorjani: Well, I was a visiting professor at the physics department on Homewood a number of
times. I have a lot of colleagues there, and sometimes we have worked together. But I remember
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in '77-78 I spent a year in the physics department as Parsons Professor of Physics, and Bill Fastie
was, of course, there. Fastie is big not only in size, but he's big in his thinking. Fastie-now, this
is a very personal opinion. If I were to think of a single man who made the astrophysics part of
the physics department as large and as reputable, as fascinating, it will have to be Bill Fastie. He
obviously did not do it by himself, but I remember very well in '77-78 that some of the world-
renowned scientists who are there in astrophysics, they were young, and Fastie's encouragement,
Fastie's goading, Fastie's excitement about doing these things was essentially bursting. I think he
did a great many good things for the physics department, for the astrophysicists, and for the
university in general. A very inventive man. He, of course, did have connections with APL at
various times. As I told you earlier on, there have been a number of projects. There have been
collaborations where APL has built something for them. So Fastie was involved in that.
But my little connection with Fastie was really more because I went to the physics
department often and spent time there. I had an office there at one point for a number of years.
Warren: Was Arthur Davidsen here at that point, too?
Moorjani: Yes. He's one of the ones I am referring to. Art was a young assistant professor. I'm
not trying to take credit away from Art, but I don't think that Art will mind my saying how
influential Fastie was. It's just that any entities-and that means universities, that means
departments, you know, they do certain things, and you want to try and start something new.
That is never easy. There's essentially built-in inertia, you know. So they had to struggle a little
bit, but I think without Fastie's foresight and his sheer delight in encouraging younger people and
seeing that great things get accomplished, Fastie deserves a lot of credit.
Warren: I'm delighted to hear you say that. All I know if what I've seen in pictures ofhim, and
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that exudes from his face. He looks like the person you're describing. He just looks like a giant
[unclear].
Moorjani: That's right. That's right. He is. And he's a giant of a man. He's physically a big man.
But as I said, that bigness was not limited to his physical size. He was a delightful man.
Warren: It comes across. It doesn't always come across physically, but in his case it does.
You're doing a great job of talking about things I want you to.
One of the things you were alluding to earlier was this idea of the importance of women at
APL. I'd like to talk about the whole idea of diversity within the institution. Obviously you're a
representative of that.
Moorjani: Yes, yes. Well, I wasn't just talking about women at APL, but I think it's just
women's involvement in the entire enterprise of society, the entire enterprise of civilization.
Obviously they have always been involved, but they've always been involved, by and large, in
secondary-what is considered as secondary. I don't consider motherhood secondary, but I think
the society at large has not given as much credit to the work of women as they deserve.
Unfortunately, even this last Sunday there was an article, a very stupid article, I thought, in New
York Times Magazine, which-let's not get on that subject.
But what I was saying earlier on, particularly connected with Shirley Anne Jackson's
coming to talk about science and engineering education of women, women obviously have not
gone into certain subjects, and that again is society-driven, that the young girls are not supposed
to be interested in certain things, and if they are interested in those things, one does not nurture
that interest as much as one may do for a boy. So, of course, science, engineering, and even
medicine, in terms of doctors, you know, if the girl is interested, well, maybe she can become a
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nurse and a boy can become a doctor.
This has gone on for much too long, and I think there is an opportunity now to do this. I
only call it an opportunity because these things have happened in the past and they have reverted
back. In the 1920s, for example, there was a strong women's movement. Every time there's been
a major disaster like war, for example, the more and more one finds out how many women
actually were pilots during World War II in this country, or that the Soviets lost so many men in
war, after the war, that a great majority, three-fourths of their medical doctors were women. But
in a male-dominated society, it always becomes that the profession that women go into gets
degraded, so medicine was definitely put down in the Soviet Union because it was largely
inhabited by women. But the number of people who were pilots in this country during World War
II were women, but those were all disbanded. I mean, their collection, whatever, regiments or
whatever it was called, they were disbanded.
I think we are past that. We are past that also because I think we need women, of course,
in science and engineering. There just aren't enough white males to fill all the positions that
science and engineering demand in the future.
And if you look at software engineering, for example, I'm told that half of the software
written these days is being done in India. It's been done in India and it actually turns out to be
extremely useful for developed countries. For example, it's very difficult to keep people in
information sciences and technology in these jobs because there's a lot of demand by these private
companies which offer them a lot more money and things like that, and even they're having
trouble. For example, Honeywell Avionics, Honeywell does a lot of avionic work, essentially all
avionics work in this country, and they had difficulty keeping people in information science and
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technology. So what did they do? They opened Honeywell India. Whatever software needs there
are, they send these problems to India, and Indian engineers sitting there just send it back. So a
result ofthis is not only that they get their work done, they get their wok done much more
cheaply, but also Honeywell acts as if they're working twenty-four hours a day. Engineers, when
they leave here, they send the problem off, and then it's received in India, an engineer just coming
into work. When he goes home, he sends it back so that the engineer who sent him the problem
here is getting that problem solved or sufficient work done on this. Of course, they pay Indian
engineers a lot less than they do here. So this is part of a diversity where people don't even have
to move, but they contribute. This is really the shrinking of the global village.
There are actually a lot more women engineer faculty, I found out, in India-I was
recently there-than here. So diversity is definitely needed. Diversity is, by and large, accepted
[unclear]. There will always be problems. These are not simple problems to get over. But I'm very
excited. I think more women are going into science and engineering. Are they being retained?
This is still a problem. But hopefully the young women of tomorrow will realize that career and
home life are not mutually exclusive.
Warren: What have you seen at Johns Hopkins? You've been here for a lot of changes I've seen
in photographs.
Moorjani: Well, photographs change because the people leave and they are replaced by new
people. But are you relating this to the diversity?
Warren: For a long time the majority were white male faces.
Moorjani: Oh, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Look. I mean, we have a woman dean of engineering
[Ilene Busch-Vishniac]. There are not terribly many universities in this country or around the
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world who have that, you know. We have a woman who is dean of nursing, of course, Sue
Donaldson. So we have women in important positions. I'm sure the number of women
representatives on the faculty reflect diversity, I don't know what it was and what it is, but I know
it's gone up.
But let me say, good as it is, we are nowhere near achieving the diversity that we need to
achieve. Again, I don't think I'm criticizing anybody or any set of people in the management or
anything. These are not easy problems. But what I do know is that the top administration of the
university, with all its divisions, I think is pretty committed to increasing the role of women in top
administration, in faculty, paying attention to their salaries, to make sure that any sort of remnants
of open or hidden segregation is done away with. I think you have to start with an idea, an idea is
there. Whether it's translated into action, it will take time. But I think it will come about.
Warren: Great. You have done an incredible job. We are through my list of specific things for
you. What haven't we talked about? You've had a long career here. We could talk about many
things. What haven't we talked about that you would like-let's talk about the future. How do
you see [unclear]?
Moorjani: The future, I mean, this last Saturday, actually, three days ago, we had the annual
meeting of the engineering faculty, but engineering faculty which is part-time engineering
programs.
Warren: Yes, we need to talk about that.
Moorjani: Yes. I've been involved with that for at least a decade and a half or maybe longer. I
think for the last decade and a half I've been chairing the applied physics program within the part-
time engineering programs at Whiting School of Engineering. You know, Hopkins, in a sense,
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was way ahead of most universities. You may be aware that this part-time engineering program is
the largest in the country. We award more master's degrees part time in engineering than any
other university in the country, and we've been doing this for a very long time. Part-time
education at Hopkins has a long history.
Who comes for a part-time education essentially are people who already are employed.
They have a job, but they want to further their career. So though "learning is a lifetime
experience" is a new phrase, but certain people, of course, have been doing it, but not absolutely
to that scale. You do advance yourself and you get more degrees. People with bachelor's get
master's. People with master's get Ph.D. But now, of course, it' s being realized that this will be
actually the modus operandi of people, that they will be, if you like, forced to learn all their lives.
So that is one aspect, and therefore the enrollment in that sort of thing will increase.
But the other aspect is what technology is bringing in, is about distance education. People
don't have to-I mean, the model of the university where there is brick buildings, where a
professor gets into a class and people from surroundings come and sit there and learn, I would not
call it necessarily outmoded, but this is going to be complemented by [unclear] where it's the
professor who, in a sense, goes to the students. The student will be sitting at his desk, or he may
be sitting at his desk at home, and listen to the lecture which is given by a professor from his
office, for example. So, again, this is not really the far-off future. It already happens. People are
doing it.
What will happen is that more and more of this type of thing will happen. But I personally
don't tend to think, therefore, that buildings and the bricks and mortar structures or campuses are
going to disappear. I think they will remain. I don't think people are going to pay $25,000 a year
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to learn in front of their screen, sit in front of their screen and learn. But there are many people
who would like to take advantage of that possibility. So the two complementary worlds, I think,
will appear.
This does not only have to do with education. At Hopkins people have been
experimenting with the School of Medicine and also at APL, doing telemedicine, that you can
actually perform operations at a distance via instructing local people, via robots. So, again, I don't
think this is a far-out future; this will happen. At least certain aspects of that, I think Hopkins is
very well placed.
Warren: Let me turn the tape over.
[Begin Tape 1, Side 2]
Warren: Tell me more about how the part-time engineering program works. I know that there
are satellite places.
Moorjani: Right.
Warren: But I don't know how it all works. Help me understand how it works.
Moorjani: Yes. Well, part-time programs, as I said, Hopkins had a long history in education of
people who were employed so they didn't come to the university between the ages of eighteen
and twenty-two, but APL also, much earlier on, had decided that they needed to teach their
people further. So if the young people came with bachelor's degree, APL started programs for
them in which they could earn higher degrees. First it was just a number of courses. These were
all taught by people at APL, people who worked at APL. That, of course, grew and later on
became a part of the engineering school. That is more like about twenty years ago that this
happened. So APL is a large center, no more just for the people from APL, but people from the
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surrounding government laboratories and private industries come.
Warren: They come and take classes at APL?
Moorjani: At APL. I think the total number of enrollment per semester, for example, is close to
3,000, 2,700 or 2,800. Now, as far as I remember, even today about sixty percent of those are at
APL campus. A number of years ago, they started this campus in Montgomery County, and that's
in Gaithersburg [Maryland] area. Shady Grove [Maryland], actually, Route 270. That was, of
course, done because there are a lot of industry which grew up around that corridor, 270 corridor.
So there are a lot of students there who needed to be further educated, so Montgomery County is
the second largest campus. Then there is the Dorsey Center. There is, of course, Homewood for
part-time engineering also. But this is how this is distributed.
One they're already taJking about and actually have some at St. Mary's College on Eastern
Maryland [sic], in a sense Hopkins has this experience ofmult-campi and how to deliver this at
distance. There is a lot more to be done about turning it into a major push, if you like, in distance
education from Hopkins.
Warren: So is the St. Mary's College connection because of the navy being down there at St.
Mary's County?
Moorjani: Well, that's part of the reason, yes, that students will come from that naval center.
Yes.
Warren: I wouldn't think of St. Mary's College as being a place to go for engineering.
Moorjani: That's right.
Warren: That's very interesting.
Moorjani: Absolutely.
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Warren: You mentioned the Dorsey Center.
Moorjani: Yes, here in Dorsey.
Warren: In Dorsey, Maryland.
Moorjani: Yes, Dorsey, Maryland. That's between here and APL.
Warren: There's a Columbia Center?
Moorjani: There's a Columbia Center.
Warren: So this is in addition to the Columbia Center?
Moorjani: Yes. There are classrooms there, you see, where people go. Again, the faculty is
drawn from not anymore just Hopkins. For example, in my program, applied physics program,
which is one of the smaller programs, all my faculty, actually, is from Applied Physics Lab except
one, who comes from Naval Research Lab to teach. But mine is a smaller program and we have
all the courses that we want to teach. Essentially we have the right people at APL to do that. But
programs like computer science, you know, which is the largest program, there the faculty does
not come from any one single place like APL. There are APL people who teach in that, but they
come from lots of other-just as the students are drawn from other laboratories and other
government labs and industry, the faculty is also drawn from places.
Warren: Interesting. How about the future of APL? What direction do you see things going?
Moorjani: Well, the future of APL, I would venture to guess, is extremely sound. There will be
a lot of changes. As I said, Dr. Richard Roca had just arrived. He's been there only since the first
of January. He's come from AT&T. He will undoubtedly put his mark on APL. This, by the way,
is the first time that APL has gone outside to get a director. Otherwise, they've always come
through APL. So that is a major change, and it will entail more changes. But I think besides that,
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APL's reputation is so sound, they have contributed so much, almost everything that they have set
their mind to, and as I said, the Space Department is going to grow because of the successes.
Maybe you will change because of the technologies changing and the way the security is
involved in terms of we being the only superpower, but that does not mean that there are no
threats, but there are different kinds of threats. And, you know, so those things will undoubtedly
change, and that will have an effect on changes at APL, but I think APL is already gearing up, and
in some cases have geared up, to meet those changes.
APL, as a whole, I have absolutely no doubt in saying, is in a very sound position and it
will grow and it will contribute continuously to its mission, but what they exactly do will
obviously change because there will be changes at the national level. Technology will change and
one has to change with that, otherwise one is left behind.
Warren: I don't think APL's going to be left behind.
Moorjani: No. [Laughter] No, not at all. That's what I said. Absolutely no doubt. I only say
that because, you know, a number oflaboratories-ifyou look at fifteen years ago, the
laboratories which were around, whether in industry or in the government, and what they were
doing and how many of them disappeared, and how many of them were drastically reduced in
size, one of the amazing things not only to people at APL, but the outside world, is that APL
essentially did not go through any major surgeries. So what I was saying is that I don't expect
APL to go through major surgery. Our funding level is pretty steady, and for the last two or three
years it's been going up again.
But I think one of the successes is, again, to get back to what I said at the very beginning,
that the forefathers of APL didn't just want to grow for the sake of growing. Just because money
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was available didn't mean that you double the size of the laboratory and make it essentially
unmanageable, if you like. The idea still is that we're not going to grow too much as far as the
number of people. It's going to be total number of people at APL, and that, in the long run, has
served APL very well.
Warren: I think so. I want to thank you. This has been a wonderful interview.
Moorjani: You're most welcome.
Warren: I'm very grateful.
Moorjani: I think you have a noble task to pay homage to a man who-I mean, I'm sure you
know a lot about Mr. Hopkins, but to pay homage to a man who set forth this sort of world-class
institution, it's a noble endeavor, and I wish you luck.
Warren: Thank you. You're helping me. You're making a major contribution.
[End of interview]
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