Robert L. Park
| Robert L. Park | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
January 16, 1931 Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions |
Sandia National Laboratories University of Maryland, College Park |
| Alma mater |
University of Texas Brown University |
| Known for | Criticism of pseudoscience |
Robert Lee (Bob) Park (born January 16, 1931) is an American emeritus professor of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a former director of public information at the Washington office of the American Physical Society. Park is most noted for his critical commentaries on alternative medicine and pseudoscience, as well as his criticism of how legitimate science is distorted or ignored by the media, some scientists, and public policy advocates as expressed in his book Voodoo Science. He is also noted for his preference for robotic over manned space exploration.
Park was born in 1931 in Kansas City, Missouri. His father was a lawyer and a farmer in southern Texas, and Park had originally intended to attend law school himself. He entered the Air Force in 1951 and served (among other places) at Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico until 1956. When the Air Force sent him to radar school, he discovered a passion for physics.
Park obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in physics at the University of Texas at Austin in 1958 and 1960, and his Ph.D. in physics at Brown University in 1964. During his graduate work he was associated with physicist Harrison E. Farnsworth with whom he co-authored several papers.
Park spent almost a decade working as a member of the technical staff, and later director of the Surface Physics Division, at Sandia National Laboratories, a U.S. government weapons research laboratory. In 1974, Park took a faculty position at the University of Maryland physics department, where he remained until retirement. He was director of UMD's Center of Materials Research from 1975 to 1978 and chairman of the Department of Physics and Astronomy from 1978 to 1982.
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