Music Legend Joan Baez And Her Unexpected Connection To A Groundbreaking Invention

May 2024 ยท 1 minute read

Joan's father, Albert Baez, was born in Mexico in 1912, according to Crafton Hills. Later, Baez and his family immigrated to the United States where Baez attended school, heading off to college to study physics at Drew University. He went on to get his master's degree at Syracuse, and then a Ph.D. at Stanford.

Baez was an established physics teacher, a profession he pursued because he didn't want his work to be used in the field of war, according to The New York Times. Baez, born a Christian, converted to become a Quaker alongside his wife before they had their three daughters (via Stanford University). He took his career global, teaching at foreign universities including the National Polytechnic Institute of Mexico and Baghdad University. Stateside, he worked for MIT and UC Berkeley, among other schools, Stanford notes. But, despite his strong science background, he never pushed his daughters to follow in his footsteps: He encouraged their desire to become musicians, instead, according to Crafton Hills.

But, Alert Baez's biggest accomplishment didn't happen while he was teaching at any of these schools. Instead, it was while he was studying for his Ph.D. that he and a fellow scientist, Paul Kirkpatrick, invented the X-ray reflection microscope.

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