Originally Posted: October 8, 2017
Editor’s note: Take a look back at The Dallas Morning News archives.
In October 1980, Dallas-raised James Cronin became the first SMU graduate to win a Nobel Prize. Although Cronin’s prize-winning physics work was done while working at Long Island, N.Y.’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, he credited his Dallas education for inspiring him to pursue a life of scientific study. Teachers at Highland Park High School remembered him fondly. SMU’s Dr. Harold Jeskey recalled that his colleague, physics department chairman Frank C. McDonald, made it clear that “one of his great, great prides was Jimmy Cronin.”
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences noted that while Cronin’s work was “without direct practical applications,” it held “great importance for the understanding of elementary matter and life on Earth.” READ MORE