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Peter D. Zimmerman

President
Email: PeterZ@minox.org

Pete bought his first Minox, a III, in 1966 because he ran into a quantum mechanics professor who could cover a blackboard with equations much faster than the students could take the necessary notes by hand. His idea was to shoot a roll (50 exposures) a week, develop the film, and then look at it once to check his notes and fill in the gaps. That worked except for one problem: Frame #36 on his first roll (Kodak Plus-X, then spooled by Minox in 36 exposure loads) was a heck of a picture, and he found that the little notebook camera was a real photographic tool. It’s been down-hill since, and he’s amassed a collection of far too many cameras, accessories, books and gadgets. Not to mention film and prints and an awful backlog of undeveloped black and white negatives.

He served as the Chief Scientist of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from August, 2001 until 15 January 2003 and as Democratic Chief Scientist from April of 2003 onwards. His responsibilities included nuclear testing, nuclear arms control, cooperative threat reduction and bioterrorism. He was the principal architect of S-3121, the “Nuclear and Radiological Terrorism Threat Reduction Act of 2002" cosponsored by Senators Biden, Lugar, Domenici, Clinton, Gregg and Schumer. He also organized the Foreign Relations Committee’s hearing on “Dirty Bombs” (radiological dispersion devices) in 2002 and the classified briefings the Committee received on the subject and was an organizer of hearings on the Nuclear Posture Review, the Treaty of Moscow, and Biological Terrorism.

Before assuming his duties in the U.S. Senate he was the Science Adviser for Arms Control in the U.S. State Department. His responsibilities included technical aspects of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, biological arms control, missile defense, and strategic arms control. Prior to the merger of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency into the Department of State, he was the last Chief Scientist of ACDA.

From April, 1999 until April, 2000 he was Chair of the American Physical Society’s Forum on Physics and Society; in 2001 he was elected to a four year term as a member of the Council of the Society. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1988.

His first appointment in Washington was as a William C. Foster Fellow at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (1984-1986) during which time he served as a technical expert on the START I negotiating team.

He holds B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University and a Filosofie Licentiat degree from Lunds Universitet in Lund, Sweden, all in experimental nuclear and elementary particle physics. He spent many years in academia as Professor of Physics at Louisiana State University. Pete’s written more than 100 papers and articles on basic physics as well as arms control and national security.

He was recently named to the newly created post of Professor of Science & Security and Director of the MacArthur Centre on Science & Security Studies at King’s College, London. Pete met his wife, Eva, a native Swede, in 1966 while he was studying in Sweden. He proposed to her 2.5 weeks later, and she accepted the same day. Married in the US and Sweden, separately, in 1967, they have now celebrated their 72nd wedding anniversary. They have two grown Minox users, I mean children.