Growing mold in a bathtub is not usually known to attract students to physics, but it did start Donald Kerr, deputy director for science and technology at the Central Intelligence Agency, on a career path to science. As a young boy, Kerr was introduced to mold when he met a bacteriologist while on a family vacation to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. That chance encounter led Kerr to a PhD in plasma physics from Cornell University in 1966.
“When I finished graduate school, I went to Los Alamos [National Laboratory] and worked on atmospheric physics problems related to high-altitude weapons effects,” says Kerr. In 1976, he moved to the newly created US Department of Energy, first to help manage its Nevada operations office, which deals with nuclear weapons testing, and then to lead defense programs. In 1979, he returned to Los Alamos, this time as lab director. After spending the late 1980s...
