Breakfast Party

This morning Riley and I had a very special breakfast with Dr. John Mather and Rep. Bill Foster. Dr. Mather is, of course, the Nobel laureate in physics who funds our internship. He spent the earlier part of his career working on COBE, which basically was responsible for confirming the Big Bang through its examination of cosmic background radiation. As if that weren't enough to prove he's amazing, he earned a perfect score on his physics GRE (how??), was listed in 2007 as one of Times magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World", and is currently the project scientist at NASA for the James Webb Space Telescope, which is set to launch in October 2018.

Meanwhile, Rep. Foster is just as impressive. At 19, he and his younger brother borrowed $500 from their parents to start a business out of their basement-- that company is now known as Electronic Theatre Controls and manufactures over half of the theater lighting in the U.S. After completing his Ph.D. in physics at Harvard, he spent years working as a particle physicist at Fermilab. Two success stories not being enough, he left this position to run for office in 2008 and currently represents the 11th district of Illinois.

How do Dr. Mather and Rep. Foster know each other, you may ask? When Dr. Foster first ran for Congress, his campaign found no fewer than 31 Nobel laureates to endorse him. Dr. Mather was one of those, and when he saw the work that Rep. Foster was doing he realized the need for more scientists in Congress and began the internship program that Riley and I are currently participating in. Aha! It all comes together.

We all met up in the members (and guests) only House restaurant, where we passed a wonderful 90 minutes discussing both politics and science. As you would expect, it was a lively conversation ranging from AI to the James Webb Space Telescope. Rep. Foster also gave us some advice in the event we ever decide to enter into politics-- mostly, he reminded us of the huge financial commitment that comes with taking a year off to campaign. He noted, a little abashedly, that it doesn't hurt to have a startup that takes off (he sold his shares in the company when he was elected to avoid conflicts of interest, but he's currently worth... $27 million) but you need to have some way to finance your campaign. It's unfortunate that this limit exists, but there it is!

Although Rep. Foster had to duck into the House Chamber for a quick vote after breakfast, he met up with us again two minutes later to take a couple photos. In the meanwhile I'd recognized someone else on the steps-- Hank Johnson, my representative! I jumped up to introduce myself, and he was very warm and happy to meet me. He asked about what I was doing this summer, where I'm at school, and gave me his business card and told me to reach out if I ever need anything. I know it's a politician's job to be liked, but he does a good job of it!

Rep. Foster

Dr. Mather

I have had so many incredible opportunities this summer-- I can't even begin to say how much fun it's been! I can't believe it'll be over soon....