MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. It's Tech Tuesday. Decades ago, a little girl in D.C. collected live bees, not to terrorize her siblings, but to take thorough notes on their habits and diet. That little girl went on to be the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate at MIT. She was also the first woman and the first African-American to chair the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIShirley Ann Jackson manages to be proud of her many accomplishments and the accolades they've earned her without being prideful, this, despite the fact that she has been described by Time magazine as perhaps the ultimate role model for women in science. Shirley Ann Jackson joins us in studio. She's a theoretical physicist and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She serves on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and is a former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the years 1995 to 1999. Shirley Ann Jackson, good to see you again.

DR. SHIRLEY ANN JACKSONWell, it's good to see you. Thank you.

NNAMDIWell, let's get right to the issues. When gas tops $4 a gallon, we hear a great deal about achieving energy independence. You say that's a dangerous misnomer for what we do need to accomplish. Why?

JACKSONIt is a misnomer for several reasons. First, there is no true energy independence, because energy exists within a global market. There are multiple sources of energy. And if one thinks of just transportation alone, particularly involving international travel, we are linked into that global market for energy and the use of energy. And as such, then, we need to think more of energy security, instead of energy independence.

NNAMDISo energy independence is not what we should be shooting for. As you say, we do need a comprehensive energy security plan. Where do you think the answer to that problem lies?

JACKSONWell, I think the answer lies in a collaborative effort which involves the government and business and industry as well as other elements of the private sector, including universities. We need those because where we need to go depends upon innovation, innovation in how we use fossil fuels, innovation as it relates to conservation and, obviously, innovation as it relates to new renewable energy sources. Universities are key to that. Government and industry are important for supporting it. But how we actually use and deploy our energy resources plays out through the private sector. But we do need leadership from the top, and that means the government.

NNAMDIIt's interesting to me how you come to these conclusions, both on the basis of your study but also on the basis of your personal experience. You've worked in government. You've worked in the private sector, and you now toil in academia.

JACKSONYes. I don't think of it quite as toil, but I enjoy what I do. But that is true. I am president of a university, a great one. As you mentioned, the oldest technological university in the United States, and as such, we educate engineers and scientists but also architects and managers, even media artists, but the point being that we're educating those who will be part of that innovation equation, in terms of where we're going in the future.

NNAMDIIf you'd like to join this Tech Tuesday conversation with Shirley Ann Jackson, she's a theoretical physicist and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, call us at 800-433-8850. How do you think the U.S. should address its energy needs? 800-433-8850. Or if you work in a scientific field, what inspired you to pursue that career path? You can also go to our website, kojoshow.org. Ask a question or make a comment there. Send us a tweet, @kojoshow, or send e-mail to kojo, K-O-J-O, @wamu.org.

NNAMDIWhen you talk about an energy security policy, there are at least six principles that you have enunciated for a comprehensive energy security plan, but I'd like to look at just about, oh, maybe two of those, the need to create a sound infrastructure that can support change. What do you mean by that?

JACKSONWell, let's take, for instance, transportation. There's a lot of work going on with, in a sense, electrifying personal transportation in the form of automobiles, and that is whether one is talking about hybrid vehicles that use a combination of battery-powered electricity...

NNAMDIThat's what I drive. (laugh)

JACKSON...or -- and gas, or whether one is talking purely about electric vehicles. If that will -- is to become more ubiquitous, then, we have to think about, one, where all of that electricity is going to come from, and then, what is the attendant infrastructure that has to be spread throughout the country to enable this to happen. And so that alone is an infrastructural question.

NNAMDIThe other aspect is the need to link industries to the technology that will work best for them and that they can benefit from with immediate results.

JACKSONRight. I talk about that as source for sector of use, namely, if one is talking about nuclear energy, one is talking typically about generation of electricity. If one is talking about transportation, then one is talking about something else, either some kind of liquid fuel or some kind of electrical generation, such as through batteries. So I think the real message has to do with what makes sense relative to sector of use, but also where is the technology today, where can we first deploy emergent technologies in ways that make economic sense.

JACKSONAnd some of this has to play through the markets in terms of what the markets will support, but in terms of where the focus should be on supporting R&D, that also has to come into the equation.

NNAMDIA recent poll found 60 percent of Americans think that an accident like the one that occurred in Japan could happen here. Before the crisis in Japan, it seemed the U.S. was on track for a nuclear renaissance, if you will. Do you think we'll still see a resurgence of nuclear power in the U.S.?

JACKSONI'm sure that the situation in Japan will cause and, in fact, is causing a pause in terms of the thinking about further deployment of nuclear energy. There is a study underway, a review of all of the nuclear power plants in the U.S. that has been ordered and undertaken by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. But a lot of the nuclear renaissance and nuclear generation and growth of that has been and is outside of the country and in developing countries where the need for ever more energy sources is great. And I do not believe that that will slow the development and evolution of nuclear power in those countries.

NNAMDIIs part of the problem that nuclear accidents have a wider scope, if you will, than mining or drilling accidents that tend to mainly impact workers?

JACKSONWell, actually, if you look at the nuclear accidents that have occurred, with the possible exception of Chernobyl, the actual scope of effect on people has been rather limited. If you look at the Three Mile Island accident, it certainly caused the shutdown and continued shutdown of one of the reactors, but the actual documented health effects were not great, and the effect in terms of contamination is very localized.

JACKSONSimilarly, in Fukushima, in Japan, obviously, we have picked up some readings of radioactive iodine in this country, but at levels that are well below the established health limits. The greatest impact in terms of the most radioactive material, again, has been in the area around the plant, coupled with the actual damage to the plant itself. I am not, however, underestimating where there could be a potentially greater accident if there were ever a -- what is called a nuclear criticality event, but that has not been the case for the accidents heretofore.

NNAMDIWhat would be a nuclear criticality event?

JACKSONIt is an event where the nuclear chain reaction actually causes an explosion, but that is not what has happened in Japan. Those have been essentially hydrogen explosions, and even the explosion in Chernobyl, which had a larger impact in areas, in countries around the -- what was then the Soviet Union is now Ukraine, was a steam explosion.

NNAMDIThe Nuclear Regulatory Commission said last week that companies must show they can shut down their reactors safely following, quoting here, "large explosions or fires" by mid-July. Was this not a requirement before?

JACKSONI think it's a reaffirmation of a requirement and a review that is meant to look in depth based on what has happened in Japan. Nuclear operators have always been required to be able to safely shut down and have them in a safe shutdown mode, their plants, in any kind of a circumstance.

NNAMDIShirley Ann Jackson is our Tech Tuesday guest. She is a former chairperson of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She serves on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. She's a theoretical physicist and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. I have a number of calls already having to do with energy, so we will go to Tom in White Post, Va. Tom, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

TOMGood afternoon. How are you guys?

NNAMDIWe are well.

TOMI keep hearing a lot of people say, well, we have to get all our energy from this country, whether it be gas or oil and, of course, you know, it goes to the drill, baby, drill. But the problem that I see with that is that when we do get that energy, much of it now or, well, not all of it, of course, is -- can be sold overseas. And do they say, well, we -- if we drill it out of the ground here, it must stay in the ground -- or stay in the United States or because if they do that, then that's sort of nationalization of the oil companies. And I'd like to get your comment on that.

JACKSONWell, I think this is part of a larger backdrop about what constitutes energy security, and it really relates to access to affordable, steady, reliable supplies of energy to meet our needs, but in ways that are as environmentally sustainable as possible. And all too often, the conversation is narrow. It is uninformed, and it is episodic. You know, we tend to want easy solutions, and so we have to avoid an addiction to easy solutions and silver bullets.

JACKSONAnd so we cannot discuss any given energy source in isolation, and that's, I think, what you were bringing up. Or absent of a realistic timeframe for the development of new sources, and we cannot do it without a consideration of full lifecycle costs, because there are always tradeoffs. There are risks associated with the use of any energy source. So the answer is not to drill or not drill, or to have nuclear power or not nuclear power.

JACKSONIt is to look at the question of redundancy of supply and diversity of source, having the right infrastructure, having a focus on environmental sustainability and looking at full life cycle costs, including environmental costs. It's looking at consistency of regulation and how energy is priced in the market and, as I said earlier, linking source to sector abuse. And so that is where I try to keep the conversation focused.

NNAMDIFor those who would like to shift the conversation to talking about the fact that, as you pointed out earlier, we live now in a globalized world, and that we have to have some form of energy independence because the unpredictable politics in the globalized environment make it necessary for us to do that. What do you say?

JACKSONWell, I think security is, again, what I stay focused on, security. And obviously, if we look at what's been happening in the Mid East and North Africa, that relates to political risks. Those are what people refer to as the above-ground risks. If we look at the Japan earthquake, the tsunami and the effect on the nuclear facilities there, we're dealing with what I refer to as intersecting vulnerabilities. And if we look at price fluctuations in energy, we're looking at forces in the market that we don't totally understand.

JACKSONAll of these things cause unease. And what it does is, again, should keep us focused again on -- for a given source of energy redundancy of supply and -- but as well, diversity of source, diversity of source that allows us to address issues of environmental sustainability.

NNAMDIIt's Tech Tuesday. Our guest is Shirley Ann Jackson. She is the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. We're gonna take a short break. If you have already called, stay on the line. We will get to your call. But we still have a couple of lines open at 800-433-8850. If you work in a scientific field, what inspired you to pursue that career path? You can also go to our website, kojoshow.org. Join the conversation there. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back to Tech Tuesday, where we're having a conversation with Shirley Ann Jackson. She is a theoretical physicist and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She's a former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and serves on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. We got an email from Nagesh (sp?) in D.C. who says, "I'm an RPI graduate, class of 2002, with a dual major in material science and engineering philosophy, and I'm a devoted alum.

NNAMDII have found the work of Dr. Jackson awe-inspiring and particularly grateful with her tenacity to bring the renaissance to Rensselaer. I would like to hear her opinion on how we can better encourage Americans to embrace innovation and take risks." I'd like you to hold that part of the question for a second while I deal with the first part of the question. You are president of the nation's oldest technological university, but a few years ago, your school spent $140 million on a performing arts center. Why?

JACKSONWell, first, we actually ended up spending a little more than that, more like 200 million, because the scope of the program increased. The price on a square footage basis remained the same. Why would we do that? We did that because so much of the questions that we have to address, so many of them relate to the intersection of fields. And, first of all, the arts are important in their own right. Rensselaer was founded to educate those who would apply science to the common purposes of life, and what greater common purpose do we have than culture and our own humanism.

JACKSONHaving said that then, the center allows us to apply very high-end technologies to new ways of performing, of creating the arts, but it also supports the role of the arts in allowing us to look at scientific and engineering questions in a new way and apply new tools. And so, as an experimental media center, it allows us to do very high-end work in visualization, animation, haptics, acoustics and do these things at human scale in specialized studios. But it also allows us, as I said, to support the classical and contemporary performing arts and to do other things in the time-based arts.

JACKSONAnd so there are fascinating projects that are going on in the center that relate to performing arts, to architecture, as well as science and technology. So it is a unique platform that we think is changing the campus culture while expanding our actual research capability, particularly since it is also linked to a very powerful university supercomputer.

NNAMDIAs a result, you advocate changing the acronym STEM education that covers science, technology, engineering and math to STEAM, including the A for arts in that combination.

JACKSONThat's correct. And it's because of all the things that I've said, but also because I think we have a unique opportunity to understand the marriage of technology and social media, technology and the arts to actually see in today's context what it really means for cognition and learning, for how people relate across cultures, how we communicate.

NNAMDIAnd now the answer the Nagesh's email, I'd like to hear your opinion on how we can better encourage Americans to embrace innovation and take risks.

JACKSONWell, first of all, I would say that we need to understand the role that innovation, particularly innovation rooted in science and engineering, has played over the last 50, 60 years in, in fact, growing our GDP. And other countries have taken note of that, and themselves are investing in these fields and working to create their own innovation ecosystems. But innovation, in the end, requires people, and we have a looming gap in our science and engineering workforce because of looming retirements.

JACKSONThere are many of our current scientists and engineers who came of age in the post-Sputnik era. And we've been able to attract exquisite talent from abroad, and we've retained a lot of that talent. But as other countries develop, and rightfully so, they wish to, as well, have talent attracted there. They wish to have those who've gone abroad for education to come back home, and we're beginning to see more of that happen. But we do not have enough young Americans looking to study in these fields.

JACKSONSo first, we have to create more exposure. That's what I call inviting young people into the sciences to understand the excitement of them, to understand what it takes to be a scientist or an engineer, but also to understand the wealth creation that comes out of these fields. Secondly, we need to prepare them to ensure that they have the right backgrounds. To be a physicist, for instance, is a cumulative process, and it requires a fairly strong math background.

JACKSONIt's hard to develop that math background if one cannot add, subtract, multiply, divide, understand logarithms and so on. One can't then do algebra, trigonometry and geometry without knowing those things. And one cannot go on to more advanced mathematics without knowing algebra, trigonometry, geometry. That doesn't mean every person has to be a mathematician, that every person has to be a scientist, but we should ensure that all of our young people have baseline grounding at a level that allows them to demonstrate that performance.

JACKSONBut, yes, we need to attract more of our own, including tapping what I call the underrepresented majority, young women and minorities, into these fields. And so inviting them, preparing them and then we ought to celebrate those who do science and engineering and what they do and help people to understand. So invite, prepare and celebrate are key elements of changing the equation.

NNAMDIAnd, of course, studying Latin for six years, which is one of the things that Shirley Ann Jackson also did.

JACKSONWhich I used to enjoy. In fact, I would sit on the front porch of our house and read Latin. I know it sounds very interesting...

NNAMDIFascinating.

JACKSON...but I loved it.

NNAMDIHere now is Bob in Clarke County, Va. Bob, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

BOBThank you. A more general question relating to, actually, what you were just talking about, and in terms of future American competitiveness in science and technology. Rensselaer being, of course, one of the leading universities in the world in that area, I'm curious -- just very simple question -- I'm curious as to what percentage of your graduates are Americans as opposed to percentage from China, India and those other countries with -- which we will be competing very seriously in the not too distant future. We already are, in fact. If you have a breakdown on that, I'd just be curious to know what those general percentages might be...

JACKSONSure. But let me just say the following, I'm one who does believe that we have to access talent from wherever talent is, which is, of course, why I believe that developing our domestic talent pool is so critical. But, again, we should not ignore the fact that have benefited from enormous talent across a range of fields that has come to us from abroad. But I say that we cannot have just one side and not the other. And so, we have to develop the complete talent pool.

JACKSONTo answer your question, in our undergraduate body, the percentage of international students is about 4 to 5 percent, 4 percent to 5 percent. It's relatively small. We expect to grow that some. But the vast majority of our undergraduates, over 95 percent, are domestic students. In our graduate body, roughly 47 percent are international. And so, you could say that nearly 50 percent are international. But it also means that over 50 percent are domestic.

NNAMDIBob, thank you very much for your call. Care to share what you extrapolate from that?

BOBExtrapolate -- yes. I guess I'm, say, I'm thinking that at least, if I've heard directly, a little fuzzy here, but at least roughly half of the graduating students will be working in the United States.

NNAMDINo, no, no. These...

JACKSONNo, no, no. I've said that 95 percent of our undergraduates are U.S. citizens.

BOBOh, 95 percent.

JACKSONNinety-five percent of our undergraduate students are U.S. citizens. And over 50 percent of our graduate students are U.S. citizens. We have a much larger international percentage in our graduate body than the undergrad. Nonetheless, we have a substantial domestic enrollment.

NNAMDIBut, Bob...

BOBWell...

JACKSONBut many of the international students remain here and contribute...

BOBBut I find...

JACKSON...to the growth of our GDP.

BOB...I find the percentages to be encouraging for America's future. Thank you very much.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call. We move on to Michael in Gaithersburg. Michael, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

MICHAELYes. I was wondering if you have an opinion on thorium nuclear -- liquid thorium nuclear reactors technology that was developed in the late '50s on through the early '70s. The program was shut down. And I just wondered, China is currently investing in it, as is France. But U.S. isn't putting any money into it.

NNAMDIInto liquid thorium reactors.

JACKSONI don't have an opinion per se, but there is work going on on a thorium-based fuel cycle in this country as well as abroad. I don't know if you remember, some years ago, there was an energy agreement worked out in the previous administration between the U.S. and India, and one element of that was going to be work on a thorium-based fuel cycle. I do think it is important relative to nuclear power generation that there be an investigation of other kinds of fuels as well as other fuel cycles for electricity generation, one, because of the question of supply, but also because there -- different fuel cycles have different characteristics relative to how you control the nuclear reaction and the relative safety and risks associated with it. So it's important to investigate these things.

NNAMDIMichael, thank you very much for your call. You, too, can call us at 800-433-8850. Our guest is Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She is a former chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and currently serves on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. As a parent, have you struggled to interest your child in STEM subjects? How have you succeeded? Or why do you think you haven't in interesting your child in engineering, math, technology, science? 800-433-8850 is the number to call. Back to the telephones. We go to Mary Anne in McLean, Va. Mary Anne, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

MARY ANNEThank you. I don't want to be the one to rain on your parade. But I have a concern. I am very well aware of the importance of energy. And I know that nuclear energy is a big, big thing, not only in our country, but in many other countries. But we have -- I don't believe we solved the problem of the spent fuel. We have spent fuel that -- there's no place to bury them. And they have an active life -- what is it? Five hundred or 5,000 years of radioactivity. That scares the daylights out of me.

NNAMDIMary Anne, I'm glad you raised that question, because Shirley Ann Jackson has said that the Achilles heel for nuclear power's prospects is what will happen to spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Care to respond to Mary Anne?

JACKSONYes. Mary Anne, you're not raining on my parade because, as Mr. Nnamdi has said, I've talked about the fact that how we close what is called the back end of the fuel cycle is the looming issue. And that, obviously, includes the amount of spent fuel that already has been generated and is being stored around the country, as well as generation of more as the plants operate. Over multiple administrations, that's been a lingering issue. And we do not do what is called reprocessing of spent fuel, where, in theory, one can create a mixed oxide fuel involving the use of uranium and plutonium to burning nuclear plants. And given that we haven't, then, ultimately, we have to deal with the spent fuel.

JACKSONBut the NRC reviews on a regular and periodic basis the storage of fuel at existing sites and whether that fuel is being safely stored. It's called a waste confidence decision. And at this point, the agency's position is that we can continue to store the fuel once it has been cooled to a certain point on the site, including in dry casts. But it does not take away your ultimate issue in terms of the ultimate disposal or treatment of that fuel. And so, thinking of what geologic repository solution or other solution we need is something that is going to, I think, get greater attention as time goes on.

NNAMDIWell, development of Yucca Mountain debated during your tenure as head of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has effectively ended. Any idea where the waste goes from here?

JACKSONI do not know. I think, again, this question about whether to have a geologic disposal mechanism or some other way to treat the spent fuel is the remaining looming question. But there is a commission that was appointed by the president to look at this. And if their report has not already come out, I expect it will fairly shortly.

NNAMDIMary Anne, thank you very much for your call. We move...

ANNEThank you.

NNAMDIWe move on now to Francis in Salisbury, Md. Francis, your turn.

FRANCISHello, Kojo. Hello, Mrs. Jackson.

NNAMDIHi, Francis.

JACKSONHello.

FRANCISMy question will involve one big assumption, and here's the assumption. The prowess in African language and culture at the historically black colleges will make them a better trading partner to the many socialist nations of Africa than those that are there right now, in a moral and economic sense better trading partners. And if this can happen through language and culture, would Rensselaer want to partner with one of the 105 historically black colleges in that massive engineering projects that would bring jobs and manufacturing commodity back to the North American Rust Belt, reemploying Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Wilmington, Newark, all these former manufacturing giants. Would Shirley Jackson and Rensselaer want to be a part of that?

NNAMDITalk about a big picture question, Francis. It's based on the notion that what's going on at historically black colleges and universities is an abundance of African students, speaking a variety of languages, who will all be returning to their countries in prominent positions. Is that your argument?

FRANCISYes, and (unintelligible) African-American students there too, they will learn those languages. That would be kind of a predicate task for them. And I know there are 75 languages spoken (word?) people on Africa, but...

NNAMDIQuestion will require a great deal of speculation on the part of Shirley Ann Jackson, but, hey, it's in her hands.

JACKSONWell, I think that Rensselaer, not unlike any number of universities, has an interest in our students developing a greater knowledge of cultures around the world, Africa certainly included, but in Asia, the Indian subcontinent and other places as well. And so our focus actually is on the acquisition of strategic languages that go across a number of continents and looking at new ways of how technology-enabled immersive environments can help students acquire language proficiency, but as well to have more of our students go abroad to actually do work, including engineering-based projects, research projects or spend semesters abroad or be part of faculty-led trips.

JACKSONAnd we have partnerships with 22 universities abroad, spread across different continents in 12 different countries to provide those opportunities, and we think that is the way that we prepare our students for global impact and global leadership.

NNAMDIFrancis, thank you very much for your call. We're gonna have to take another short break. But if you have called, stay on the line. We'll try to get to your call. But go to our website kojoshow.org, you can make a comment or ask a question there. Send us a tweet @kojoshow or email to kojo@wamu.org. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIIt's Tech Tuesday, and we're having a conversation with Shirley Ann Jackson. She's a theoretical physicist and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She serves on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. She's a former chairperson of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Shirley Ann Jackson, the space race inspired lots of kids to pursue careers in math and science. What do you think it will take to inspire younger generations to embrace math and science?

JACKSONAgain, I think the issues that we're facing in dealing with energy security on the one hand, and what I call, again, the intersecting vulnerabilities on the other, as well as the continued globalization of our world presents us with a Sputnik moment today, because so much of what we are dealing with in terms of addressing questions of energy, of addressing issues of poverty, issues of disease mitigation, how do we help to elevate standards of living and rejuvenate our own manufacturing sector. These things all rests in the need for science and technology-based innovation. And if we cannot use those very challenges as opportunities to inspire a new generation, then shame on all of us who are anywhere from 20 up, let us say. (laugh)

JACKSONAnd so I think it does require national leadership, and I think the president and his secretary of education have done a lot to give focus to this. The fact that the president gives a commencement address at a high school that has worked to improve the performance of its students I think sends a very powerful message. But those of us who are in all of the different sectors can't be let off the hook either. And so I think the question of looking at K-12 education, looking at teacher preparation, looking at learning assessment and standards and as well as, of course, how students perform.

JACKSONBut if we don't have those inputs in terms of the best teachers, the curriculum, looking at reaching students where they are, exciting them about learning, being consistent, perhaps having students spend more time in school, then we can't measure on the other end.

NNAMDIWe had a caller, Janine, who couldn't stay on the line, who would like to know if you can talk about the fact that you are a product of the Washington public school system. I'd like to be a little more specific than that. You and your siblings were raised in segregated Washington. Despite the barriers of that era, each of you has excelled. What were your parents doing right? What was the public school system doing right?

JACKSONWell, as my husband likes to say, our son sure knew how to pick his parents. (laugh) And so my sisters and I -- and we had a brother who passed away at a pretty young age -- we knew how to pick our parents, as it were. Because our parents were very focused on family, the strength of it, on hard work, and obsessively focused on the role of education. And as such, we all learned to read before we went to kindergarten, and we all had a very strong foundation going into the public school system. And our parents would not let the fact that the schools were segregated deter us from a focus on excellence, and I think that had a lot to do with it.

JACKSONAt the same time, my own career probably had the chance to evolve into my being a scientist because of, in a sense, a confluence close in time of two seminal events. One was the ultimate integration of the public schools due to the Brown v. Board of Education decision, which created more competition and in a way, access to more resources into the classroom for people like me. The other was the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite, Sputnik 1, which riveted the nation's attention on science and math and technology, because it made the country aware that we were in a race, a space race, but it was really as much a science-based defense race. Because of that, there was a lot of focus on improving curricula.

JACKSONAnd so we did it then. We can do it now. There was a focus on identifying those who had interest and talent and ability and potential to study science and math, and then to provide support when students would go to college and into graduate study. So I benefited from all of this, a strong family foundation from the beginning. And my father was very talented in mechanical things and in math, even though he didn't have formal education beyond high school.

JACKSONMy mother did, but she gave us strength in the language arts. And I'm blessed because she is still with us. But then we had these changes that occurred because of the confluence of events. And so I had the opportunity to take advantage of all of those.

NNAMDII'm looking at a book called "The Strong Force: The Story of Physicist Shirley Ann Jackson" by Diane O'Connell, the "Women's Adventures in Science" series that tells a little bit more about Shirley Ann Jackson and how she grew up. There's also a great website, iwaswondering.org. I went to that website today. It was created and is geared towards getting young people excited about science by highlighting women's accomplishments in the field. And that website also highlights Dr. Jackson.

NNAMDIIt features a video of a young Shirley Ann Jackson beating the pants off of a neighborhood boy in a go-kart race by creating a streamlined car to win the race. Apparently, it's historically accurate, so your life wasn't just always study and hard work, was it?

JACKSONOh, no. (laugh) We did all the things that one would expect young people to do. We had our dolls. We had our bicycles. And, yes, our father worked with us on designing and building go-karts, and we had very good ones which allowed us to win our races. One of my sisters -- Gloria and I, particularly -- used to like that. And, again, all of these things are part of what makes a person who that person turns out to be. And so all of us developed in our own different arenas, but, in the end, we all had this kind of root, which made life both fun and a learning experience.

NNAMDIYou don't live in D.C. anymore, but you're here a lot. One of the reasons is to visit your sainted mother. I can say that because I know her. But one of our callers who couldn't stay on the line also wanted you to talk about your membership of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution, which, presumably, venture to Washington also from time to time.

JACKSONYes. I was a member of the board of the Smithsonian for the last six years, and I've thought of it as a privilege. As you know, the Smithsonian's mission is the increase and diffusion of knowledge. That is not unlike what universities do. Universities do it in a very direct way through its, the research that goes on in universities and educating young people. The Smithsonian does it as well, through its collections, through its display and creating access to those collections, through the research in science that goes on there.

JACKSONAnd so there's a natural synergy. And, of course, the Smithsonian as well, one could argue, provides a leverage or a multiplying effect for schools, for those who have the chance to visit in person. But, increasingly, through the use of technology, the Smithsonian is making its assets and its learning accessible to a broader range of young Americans, and I think that's very important. So it's been a privilege to be on the board.

NNAMDIHere's Christine in Fairfax, Va. Christine, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

CHRISTINEHi. I have a daughter who's an excellent student and -- in liberal arts and very interested in creativity and the creative side of that endeavor. She's also a very strong science and math student. But I believe that she doesn't see science and math as creative endeavors. And I was wondering what Dr. Jackson would encourage schools, parents or students to do to help open their eyes to the creativity in science and math.

JACKSONWell, thank you. I think that's an excellent question because, in fact, science is very creative, because one has to think through and develop a thought about what may be and even to posit in hypothesis, and then try to figure out ways to test that. And in the process, one is really uncovering very beautiful things and trying to understand the universe through observation, but also through what one posits about how things happen. And if you've ever studied galaxies and you look at things that have come from the Hubble Telescope, things that have even inspired painters and other graphic artists, we find that -- visual artists -- there is a lot of creativity that marries with what is going on with science.

NNAMDIYou have said that you were educated to address complex problems by having an intuition about the answer. At first thought, people may not think of intuition as an asset in scientific fields. Why has that been important to you?

JACKSONWell, intuition is important because that is how one makes a leap, because one has to have some thought, not, where the information or the data or the proof is not available initially. And so one is making a leap -- and it is a creative leap -- as to what may be happening or could happen in a certain circumstance. It is followed up with what is a fairly disciplined process having to do with experimentation or calculation or modeling and so forth. But one has to make that leap.

JACKSONAnd if you look at the greatest scientists, they've always been able to do that, and -- or they see things in experiments where the connection from where things have been to what they are positing is not always so obvious.

NNAMDIOn to Stephanie in Hyattsville, Md. Hi, Stephanie.

STEPHANIEHello. Thank you for taking my call. I'm calling mainly about renewable energy. You had talked about kind of the major events that happened in your life that spurred Sputnik and other things that spurred your education. And right now, the U.S. isn't really the leader in renewable energy. Germany has a fourth of their energy comes from renewables. China is really big. And now Japan, after the disaster, they're having, you know, the new homes being built with solar panels. And I was wondering kind of your feel on the state of renewable energy in the U.S. And what can be done to make us more the leader in this field?

JACKSONWell, I'll address it in two ways. First, there is more of a burgeoning interest, including in companies here in the U.S., with thinking about developing new renewable energy sources -- in wind, in particular, but in solar as well, and even wave and geothermal energy and how to tap those sources. And so I think that will continue to grow over time and accelerate. Secondly, it's interesting, what many people don't think about is that, in fact, buildings consume about a third of our energy use, comprises that.

JACKSONAnd so there is a need to think more carefully and cleverly about the design of buildings, including homes, both with respect to the kind of materials that are used, ways to use more ambient conditions in terms of capturing the smallest amount of breeze to cool buildings and things like that without diminishing the quality of living in those buildings. And so -- but in the end, it will require innovation. And if we don't focus on that, we aren't going to regain leadership in an important area, and in the process we won't be able to create the jobs and so forth.

NNAMDIShirley Ann Jackson is a theoretical physicist and president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She's on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and is a former chairperson of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Shirley Ann Jackson, thank you so much for joining us.

JACKSONWell, thank you. It was a pleasure talking with you and your audience.

NNAMDIIt always is. Don't you agree? And thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.