Scientific Travel to Iran Denied, September 2017
In late August 2017 five U.S. scientists who had requested licenses to travel to Iran were denied concurrence, by the Office of Foreigh Assets Control in the Department of the Treasury. A commentary was provided by Warren Pickett and Laura Greene to the Back Page column of the newspaper APS News provided to member monthly by the American Physical Society. Read here.
Three U.S. Professors visit Iran, February 2014
posted by Warren Pickett
During the first two weeks of February 2014 I traveled to Iran with Tony Leggett (UIUC) and Paul Chu (Univ. of Houston), hosted by Mohammad Akhavan (Sharif Univ. of Technology), all professors in physics at their respective universities. This page contains information related to the trip and following activities.
American party and hosts dining in a traditional Iranian restaurant
1. A Commentary on the trip, Science diplomacy in Iran,
was published in
Nature Physics, July 2014.
See the Nature Physics
web page.
Paul and May Chu, Farzaneh Akhavan, Jill and Warren Pickett at a Tehran bazaar
2a. An early Synopsis appeared on the UC Davis Dateline, now archived on the
Division of Mathematics & Physical Sciences web site
2b. A report in the Asia Pacific Physics Newsletter here.
2c. An interview on Tony Leggett's Iran-related activities by AVA Diplomatic has appeared online pdf version
2d. An interview on Pickett's Iran-related activities by AVA Diplomatic
has appeared online
here.
pdf version
2e. An Iranian report of the visit of the three physicists can be viewed here
The group with with Reza Roosta Azad, President of Sharif University,
and former Minister of Cultural Heritage and Tourism Mohammad-Ali Najifi
3. July 16 report on the visit of U.S. physicists to Iran, on the web site of the Iranian Students' News Agency.
4. “… if two countries or governments are at war, the men of science are not. That would indeed be a civil war of the worst description: we should rather, through the instrumentality of men of science, soften the asperities of national hostility.” Sir Humphry Davy, Paris, Vol. 1, p. 261 (1831). in John Ayrton Paris, The Life of Sir Humphry Davy, 2 volumes, London (1831)
5. Some commentaries on Iranian academic issues
Elise Auerbach on Iranian scientists in Nature
Iranian scientist jailed, reported in Nature
Scientific journals refusing Iranian manuscripts, covered in Science
Rock concert in Tehran,reported in NYT
pdf
2008: visits to Iran suspended by U.S. National Academies
TIME Dec 2015:
Is Iran finally ready for change? by Karl Vick/Tehran
6. Slides of a presentation given at UC Davis, Univ. of Tennessee Knoxville, and at the Lorenz Center in Leiden are available.
The group at the Khaju Bridge in Isfahan.
7. Slides of a talk given at UC Davis, Univ. of Tennessee Knoxville, and at the Lorenz Center in Leiden are available here
8. Interview with Tony Leggett by AVA Diplomatic. here
Chance meeting with Iranian schoolgirls, who were delighted to get photos taken with, and collect autographs from, the visitors from the U.S..
9. The National Academy of Sciences has released a book,
U.S.-Iran Engagement in Science, Engineering, and Health (2010-2016);
a Resilient Program but an Uncertain Future,
by Glenn E. Schweitzer (NAS). The pdf version is available for download and
is provided here for convenience..