!948-1998 - 50th Aniversary


Panelists



Oscar Arias Sánchez
Nobel Prize, Peace, 1987

Former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sánchez was awarded the 1987 Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of his leadership in helping to end the armed conflicts that tore apart Central America in the 1980s.

Dr. Arias was born in Costa Rica in 1941. He studied in the United States, Costa Rica and England, where he received a doctorate with his thesis on the subject of "Who Rules Costa Rica?"

His political career began in 1970, when he served as assistant to ex-President José Figueres, who was then seeking re-election. When Mr. Figueres was elected in 1972, he appointed Dr. Arias as Minister of National Planning and Political Economy.

In 1975, Dr. Arias' National Liberation Party elected him International Secretary and in 1979, General Secretary. Dr. Arias was elected to the Legislative Assembly in 1978, but withdrew in 1981 to work for presidential candidate Luis Alberto Monge, who won the election. In 1985, Dr. Arias was nominated as the party's presidential candidate and won the following year.

As President, Dr. Arias intervened against the activities of U.S.-backed Contras in Costa Rican territory and engaged Nicaragua and other Central American countries in a peace-making process. In May 1986, he met the presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras to discuss peace proposals that had been worked out by the Contadora group. Though they did not reach a full agreement, early in 1987 Dr. Arias succeeded in calling a new meeting. He submitted his own peace plan, which departed in some respects from the Contadora approach. The accord approved by the five heads of state in Guatemala on August 7, 1987, was based on the Arias plan.

Baruj Benacerraf
Nobel Prize, Medicine/Physiology, 1980

Venezuelan-born immunologist Baruj Benacerraf received the 1980 Nobel Prize for Medicine, along with his colleagues Jean Dausset and Georg D. Snell, for their discoveries about how genetically determined structures on the cell surface regulate immunological reactions. Their work was recognized for its contribution to the understanding of immune responses and graft rejection.

Born in Caracas and raised in Paris, Dr. Benacerraf received his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in New York in 1942. While attending medical school at the Medical College of Virginia, he was drafted in 1943 into the U.S. Army with the other medical students, as part of the wartime training program. That same year he became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

After training as an intern at Queens General Hospital in New York City, he was commissioned First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Corps in 1946 and assigned to France. After his discharge the following year, Dr. Benacerraf decided to pursue a career in medical research, focusing on the field of immunology.

His research career began in 1948 at Columbia University's School of Physicians and Surgeons. Family reasons required Dr. Benacerraf to relocate to Paris from 1949 to 1956, when he conducted research at the Brousssais Hospital. When Dr. Benacerraf returned to the United States, he became an assistant professor of pathology at New York University's School of Medicine and developed his own laboratory and research group. It was at this time that he initiated his studies in immunogenetics that would merit him the Nobel Prize.

Dr. Benacerraf headed the immunology laboratory at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease in Bethesda, Md., for two years before accepting the Chair of Pathology at Harvard Medical School in 1970. At Harvard, he initiated an interdepartmental immunology graduate program and continued his work on immune response genes.

Dr. Benacerraf, who has earned numerous awards, has served as president of the American Association of Immunologists (1973), the American Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine (1974) and the International Union of Immunological Societies (1980). He was appointed president of the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute of Boston in 1980, and donated his portion of the Nobel Prize to that institution.

Mario José Molina
Nobel Prize, Chemistry, 1995

The ozone layer became a mainstream concern partly due to the work of Mario José Molina, who won the 1995 Nobel Prize for Chemistry along with F. Sherwood Rowland and Paul Crutzen. The discoveries of Drs. Molina and Rowland – that some industrially manufactured gases deplete the ozone layer – led to an international to limit the widespread use of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases.

Born in Mexico City, Dr. Molina studied chemical engineering at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He received an advanced degree from the University of Freiburg (1967) in West Germany before returning to his alma mater to become an associate professor (1967-68).

In 1968 he left for the University of California at Berkeley to pursue graduate studies in physical chemistry. He received his Ph.D. from that institution in 1972. In 1973 he joined Dr. Rowland at the University's Irvine campus as a postdoctoral fellow to conduct research into CFCs, inert industrial chemicals which at the time were thought to have no significant effects on the environment.

Three months after arriving at Irvine, the two researchers developed the "CFC-ozone depletion theory," which indicated that the chlorine atoms produced by the decomposition of CFCs in the atmosphere would catalytically destroy ozone. Alarmed at the possibility that the continued release of CFCs into the atmosphere would cause a significant depletion of the Earth's stratospheric ozone layer, they decided to share their findings with the atmospheric sciences community.

The issue gained a broader audience in June 1994, when the researchers published a paper in the scientific journal Nature. Their conclusions sparked a nationwide debate on the environmental effects of CFC gases and were validated in the mid-1980s, when a region of stratospheric ozone depletion – known as the ozone hole – was discovered over Antarctica.

Dr. Molina spent seven years as a professor at Irvine until 1982, when he left academia to join the Molecular Physics and Chemistry Section at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In 1989, he returned to academic life at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has continued his research on global atmospheric chemistry issues.

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel
Nobel Prize, Peace, 1980

When he was awarded the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel was recognized for "being the spokesman of a revival of respect for human rights" and for "having shone a light through the darkness" of Argentina's period of military rule.

Born in Buenos Aires, he taught architecture and art for 25 years until the 1976 military coup that deposed the government of Isabel Perón.

In the 1960s, Mr. Pérez Esquivel had begun working with grassroots Christian organizations in the poorest sectors of society. He also participated in nonviolent, ecumenical movements promoting peace and social justice in Latin America.

After the 1976 coup, Mr. Pérez Esquivel became a full-fledged activist, organizing groups and helping the families of victims. This period saw the rise of a number of effective movements, such as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Mr. Pérez Esquivel founded the Service, Peace and Justice Foundation to defend human rights and denounce atrocities of dictatorships in Argentina and the rest of the world.

In April 1977, he was arrested, tortured and imprisoned by the Argentine dictatorship. During his 14-month imprisonment – with no charges filed and no trial – he was awarded the John XXIII Peace Memorial, one of numerous awards he has received for his efforts on behalf of human rights.

Today the Service, Peace and Justice Foundation has permanent secretariats in 11 countries, as well as solidarity groups in Europe. It works with indigenous peoples, campesinos and others to promote peace and human rights through educational programs. Mr. Pérez Esquivel is president of the Foundation'sHonorary Council for Latin America. He is also president of the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, based in Milan, Italy.

In 1994 he and other Nobel Peace Prize recipients visited Thailand to demand the release of the 1991 Nobel Peace laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi. In 1995, Mr. Pérez Esquivel headed peace missions seeking resolutions to conflicts in Peru and Ecuador, and in Chiapas, Mexico.

Mr. Pérez Esquivel, who is a sculptor, has also expressed his support of human rights through the arts. His works include the Monument to Refugees, at the headquarters of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland.

He has received honorary doctorates from universities in the United States, Latin America, Europe and Japan. In December 1996 he received the "Citizen of the World" award from the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century.

John C. Polanyi
Nobel Prize, Chemistry, 1986

John C. Polanyi of Canada was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, along with D.R. Herschbach and T. Yuan Lee, for their research into the dynamics of chemical reactions.

Dr. Polanyi was born in Berlin in 1929. He obtained his bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees from the University of Manchester in England. In 1952, he moved to Canada, which would become his adoptive home, and became a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Research Council Laboratories in Ottawa.

After two years as a research associate at Princeton University, in 1956 Dr. Polanyi was appointed lecturer at the University of Toronto, where he eventually became a full professor of chemistry, a position he still holds.

Dr. Polanyi, who has talked about the need for scientists to demystify the nature of their work, has written more than 100 articles on such issues as science policy, arms control and the impact of science on society. He is co-editor of The Dangers of Nuclear War (1979). He is a member of the board and adviser to the Canadian Centre for Arms Control and Disarmament and president of the Canadian Committee of Scientists and Scholars.

He is also a Fellow of the Royal Societies of Canada, London and Edinburgh, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Rome. He served on the Prime Minister of Canada's Advisory Board on Science and Technology, as Honorary Advisor to the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics and as Honorary Advisor to the Institute for Molecular Sciences in Japan.

Dr. Polanyi has received honorary degrees from 25 universities in North America and Europe. His numerous awards include the Marlow Medal of the Faraday Society, the Centenary Medal of the British Chemical Society, the Steacie Prize for Natural Sciences, Wolf Prize in Chemistry and the Royal Medal of the Royal Society of London.

Derek Walcott
Nobel Prize, Literature, 1992

Poet and playwright Derek Walcott was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature "for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment." In his speech accepting the prize, he talked about the West Indies as a place created from African and Asiatic elements.

"Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than the love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole," he said. "Antillean art is this restoration of our shattered histories, our shards of vocabulary, our archipelago becoming a synonym for pieces broken off from the original continent."

Born on the island of Saint Lucia, Mr. Walcott graduated from the University College of the West Indies. In 1957 he was awarded a fellowship by the Rockefeller Foundation to study American theater. He is the founder of the Trinidad Theater Workshop, and his plays have been produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and the Negro Ensemble Company.

In 1969 he received the Eugene O'Neill Foundation-Wesleyan University Fellowship for playwrights. In 1981 he was a recipient of a five-year fellowship from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He is an honorary member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Mr. Walcott has published many books of play and verse, beginning with 25 Poems, published in 1948 when he was 18. Other works include In a Green Night (1962), Another Life (1973) and the epic poem Omeros (1990). He has won several prizes, including the Guinness Award for Poetry, the Royal Society of Literature Award and the Queen's Medal for Poetry.

Jody Williams
Nobel Prize, Peace, 1997

On December 3, 1997, more than 120 nations meeting in Ottawa, Canada, signed a comprehensive ban on the production and use of land mines. Jody Williams of the United States played a key role in that success.

Ms. Williams began working with the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation in 1991 to bring together a coalition to ban the deadly mines. The coalition she coordinated grew to more than 1,000 non-governmental organizations in over 60 countries, joining forces as the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. That organization and Ms. Williams shared the 1997 Nobel Prize for Peace.

Ms. Williams graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and soon after coordinated the Nicaragua-Honduras Education Project, which organized and led fact-finding delegations of U.S. opinion makers to Central America. Subsequently she became associate director of Medical Aid to El Salvador, a Los Angeles-based humanitarian relief organization..

Ms. Williams has spoken and written extensively on the land mine crisis.She co-authored a seminal work on the socioeconomic impact of the weapon, called After the Guns Fall Silent: The Enduring Legacy of Landmines.

The laureate recently announced plans to step down as head of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, thought she will continue to work with the organization. She plans to write a book about the success of the anti-mine effort.

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