Kafatos awarded Fletcher Jones professorship

Menas Kafatos, Ph.D., Vice Chancellor for Special Projects and Founding Dean of the Schmid College of Science and the Director of the Center for Excellence in Applied, Computational, and Fundamental Science, was recently honored with the title of Fletcher Jones Endowed Professorship in Computational Physics.

The professorship was officially announced during the Beyond Copenhagen International Conference on Climate Change, held April 21-23 at Chapman, which Dean Kafatos co-chaired.

In Orange County we think of “Fletcher Jones” and cars, but the Fletcher Jones Foundation responsible for this endowed professorship honors a completely different individual.  Fletcher R. Jones was a mathematician and visionary businessman who recognized very early the potential in what was then the then new field of computer science.  In 1959, along with his business partner, Roy Nutt, he launched Computer Sciences Corporation.  By 1963, CSC was the nation’s largest software company in a crowded field and the first to be listed on a national exchange.

The company became the master of blending computers and communications, as well as the pioneer of multi-programming and real time. By 1967 CSC was well on the way to being the world leader in computer science, having gained lucrative contracts with NASA, The Atomic Energy Commission, and the Army.  Today, Computer Sciences Corporation is the largest technology firm headquartered in Los Angeles County with over 90,000 employees worldwide.

Fletcher Jones had a passion for education and he is quoted as saying, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”  The Foundation that was created through his largesse has a strong emphasis on higher education in California and they were especially pleased to name this endowed fellowship for computational physics, which is arguably the next visionary step in the evolution of applied science.

Dr. Kafatos joined Chapman University in 2008. He received his B.A. in Physics from Cornell University in 1967 and his Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972.   After postdoctoral work at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, he joined George Mason University and was University Professor of Interdisciplinary Sciences there from 1984-2008.  He also served as Dean of the School of Computational Sciences and was Director of the Center for Earth Observing and Space Research.