History Munk-vision: An interview with Prof. Walter Munk
Munk in his office, 2002
Professor Munk received a Ph.D. in oceanography in 1947 from Scripps
Institution of Oceanography and has spent his entire professional
career at Scripps. In 1947 he became an assistant professor, and
in 1954 he became a professor of geophysics and was named a member
of the UC’s Institute of Geophysics. In 1960, he established
the SIO branch of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics,
where he served as director until 1982. Professor Munk is considered
by many to be one of the world’s greatest living oceanographers,
and in 2001 was awarded the inaugural Prince Albert I Medal from
the International
Association for the Physical Sciences of the Oceans (IAPSO).
Click on
the following questions to link directly to Walter's answers.
[Note: To view the movies, you will need to download Quicktime] |
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1. When
did you first come to Scripps Institution of Oceanography? [1.4MB]
2. Did
you come to Scripps as an oceanography student? [1.3MB]
3. What
did you do after you finished your Ph.D.? [1.2MB]
4. How
did your interest in geophysics come about? [1.9MB]
5. Were
there many other researchers at Scripps to collaborate with?
[3.3MB]
6. Did
the researchers that first came here bring their own equipment?
[3.1MB]
7. Did
IGPP initially start as a research unit/group? [0.4MB]
8. How
long was it before IGPP started taking graduate students? [1.9MB]
9. Did
the early students help to build instruments? [2.1MB]
10. When
did IGPP become the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute? [4.0MB]
11. How
has geophysical technology changed over the last 50 years? [3.1MB]
12. Did
many early students stay on after graduating and become professors?
[1.2MB]
13. Why
do you think IGPP has expanded so much from such a small research
group? [1.4MB]
14. Has
there been much investment from industry, such as oil companies,
or was funding mainly from government bodies, such as the Navy?
[3.1MB]
15. How
do you see IGPP progressing into the future? [1.2MB]
16. What
have been the impacts of geophysics over the last 50 years on the
average person? [2.9MB]
Thanks very
much to Walter for his time!
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here to go back to the main History page.
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