February 24, 2014 –
During a CALIT2 Advisory Board meeting at UC Irvine, Phil Smith (seated third from left) and fellow board members are briefed on the Hiperwall display system.
Philip M. Smith, the founding co-chair of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (CALIT2) Advisory Board, passed away on Feb. 16, 2014, after a brief illness.
Smith was one of the most experienced science policy professionals in the United States, having served in Washington, D.C. during every administration from Eisenhower to Clinton.
In the 1950s he trained as a geologist and conducted research in Greenland and Antarctica, leading to his directing large-scale international research programs in the geophysical sciences at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the 1960s and 1970s. Smith later served as associate director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy for Natural Resources, Energy and Science from 1975 to 1981; following that he became executive director of the National Research Council for 12 years. Smith participated in many other public and private organizations, including as a member of the board of directors for Aurora Flight Sciences.
Smith is remembered fondly by national science leaders, including:
• Frank Press, former President’s Science Advisor and President of the NAS: “Phil’s passing is a tragic loss of my best friend and closest partner in 16 years of professional activities in the White House and National Academy of Sciences. I couldn’t have managed without him.”
• Richard Atkinson, former NSF director, former UC San Diego chancellor, and former UC president: “Phil Smith played a key role in the early development of the National Science Foundation and in establishing critical policy that defined the Foundation’s future. He played similar roles in the science office of the White House and later at the National Research Council. American science is indebted to Phil for his leadership at critical periods in our nation’s history.”
• Ralph Cicerone, former chancellor of UC Irvine, who served as co-PI on the CALIT2 proposal in 2000, and now is president of the National Academy of Sciences: “Phil had an amazing ability to add value, both to established institutions inside and outside of government (OSTP, NSF, the NAS), while also being capable of formulating and evaluating ideas in totally new spheres like CALIT2. Few people can preserve and enhance the value of established institutions while also nurturing start-ups.”
CALIT2’s Smarr (left) with Smith in Santa Fe, N.M., in 2006.
CALIT2’s founding director Larry Smarr, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of California, San Diego, had a long-lasting relationship with Smith.
“I first met Phil while serving on an NAS committee (the “Zare Report”) to determine whether NSF should initiate its later, highly successful Science and Technology Centers program. For the next 25 years, Phil served as my mentor, with my making innumerable trips to seek Phil’s advice in his two homes: Washington, D.C., and Santa Fe, N.M.
“Phil served as the chair of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications External Advisory Council for 15 years while I was director there. After I moved to UC San Diego, I asked Phil to become the co-chair of the CALIT2 Advisory Board along with Forest Baskett, now a General Partner at NEA.”
In his role as Advisory Board co-chair, Smith worked closely with the chancellors at UC San Diego and UC Irvine on strategic planning for CALIT2.
• Bob Dynes, former UC San Diego chancellor and former UC president, as well as co-PI on the CALIT2 proposal: “Phil was a smart, generous, gentle, national treasure. He helped us enormously by crafting and then advising CALIT2. We will all miss him.”
• Marye Anne Fox, UC San Diego chancellor after Dynes, and a National Medal of Science winner: “I knew him from his work at the Academy, where he was simply outstanding. Science has benefitted in so many ways from his contributions. He was largely responsible, working with CALIT2 directors, for making CALIT2 viable.”
• Michael Drake, UC Irvine chancellor: “CALIT2 was from the beginning a bold idea – two strong universities collaborating to push the envelope of telecommunications and technology research. It needed experienced, strong, respected and above all wise Advisory Board leadership to guide it through its nascency. Phil was all of these things and more. Our success is due in large part to the detailed, focused and insightful advice he provided. Phil was a wonderful scientist, mentor to a generation, and a great friend. He will be missed.”
Said G.P. Li, CALIT2 UC Irvine division director: “Phil has been a great mentor to us. His wisdom and experience guided us through difficult times for the university and nation in supporting research. He will be greatly missed.”
According to Smarr, what made Smith so unusual was that, in addition to his 60 years in science policy, he was a perfect bridge between C. P. Snow’s “Two Cultures” of sciences/engineering and the humanities/arts through his lifelong engagement with both.
As a collector and mentor of many contemporary artists, he developed a major personal collection. Later in life he began to give away large segments of his collection, for instance to found the Nampeyo :: Namingha – Tradition and Transition exhibit at the Museum of Northern Arizona. Smith was a great devotee of the theatre and made numerous trips to New York and London to see a wide range of performances, making him an insightful advisor to CALIT2’s projects in the digital arts.
Similarly, Phil Smith’s lifetime of outdoor adventures provided a unique perspective on CALIT2 projects in the digital environment. In his early years Smith was active in cave exploration and mountaineering, and for five decades he was an avid river-runner on the Green-Colorado River System. In 1958, he conceived and helped plan the first and only successful upriver jet boat trip through the Grand Canyon in 1960.
Smith shared these immersive experiences with Smarr and co-chairs of the CALIT2 Advisory Board Forest Baskett and Anne Petersen in the “Friends of Phil” expeditions he led to the Grand Canyon in September 2007 (a two-week rubber raft trip down the Colorado river through 200 rapids) and on a National Geographic ship to the Galápagos Islands in July 2012.
CALIT2’s Smarr reminisced: “Phil’s all-too-early departure leaves a large hole in many of our hearts. He was the quintessential public servant, a role which is so essential and yet filled so rarely at the level Phil Smith served. We deeply miss him.”
–courtesy of CALIT2, UC San Diego division
