After spending more than three decades trying to understand the physics of the nucleus, I plunged into Berkeley politics. My career as an experimental scientist, where I worked many owl shifts at temperamental accelerators debugging electronics, prepared me for lengthy Berkeley City Council meetings and the chaos of politics. On the Council, we have debated whether exposure to a single radioactive atom will kill you, that cell phones cause brain cancer, nano particles are more dangerous than molecules, and that all man-made substances are more dangerous than natural substances. I will describe how the Council grapples with some of these topics. Finally, I will present some of the challenges facing the City with respect to parking/traffic, potholes, sewer overflows, drones, and budget & pensions and how scientists can help solve these challenges.
In 1966 Gordon moved to Berkeley from Iowa to attend graduate school. He received his PhD from UC Berkeley in Nuclear Chemistry and worked as a research scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for over 30 years, where he co-authored over 200 nuclear physics papers.
While pursuing his research career, he served on several city commissions: Planning, Parks & Recreation, and Environmental. In January of 2002, he took an early retirement from LBNL and twelve months later, he was elected to Berkeley’s City Council.
During his twelve years in office, he has focused on reducing crime, increasing citizen participation, and improving municipal services. In addition, to his work on the Council, Gordon represents Berkeley on the Alameda County Waste Management Authority and the Recycling Board.
