Francis Slakey
Francis Slakey is the Upjohn Lecturer on Physics and Public Policy at Georgetown University and the Associate Director of Public Affairs at the American Physical Society, where his focus is the intersection of science and society.
The founder and co-director of the Program on Science in the Public Interest, a Lemelson Associate of the Smithsonian Institution, and a MacArthur Scholar, Dr. Slakey has been profiled by NPR, National Geographic, and others, and his writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Slate, and Scientific American. In recognition of his adventures, he carried the Olympic Torch from the steps of the U.S. Capitol as part of the 2002 Olympic Games. In July of 2009 he became the first person to summit the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean.
“If you get to the end of your life and you have regrets that you could have done better, then you blew it.”
“It is remarkable, the lines that connect people. You can strike up a conversation with someone, a stranger even, and discover that you have a friend in common, that your aunts were from the same town, or that his best friend can grease your way into Bhutan. It seems on those occasions that we are all like strands of DNA, spun around each other in a double helix.”