Committee of Concerned Scientists

An international non-profit organization of scientists, physicians, engineers and scholars dedicated to protecting the human rights and scientific freedom of our colleagues around the world.

An independent non-profit organization of scientists, physicians, engineers and scholars dedicated to protecting the human rights and scientific freedom of our colleagues around the world.

An open letter to the Physics community from physicists of Russian descent.

On Feb. 24, 2022, the Russian government started a criminal war against its peaceful neighbor, Ukraine, that has resulted in countless innocent lives lost. We  express our unequivocal opposition to this war and demand  immediate and complete  removal of Russian troops from the sovereign Ukrainian territory. We also demand bringing those responsible for the aggression to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity. We express our full solidarity with colleagues in Ukraine and encourage research institutions around the world to explore every possibility for increasing cooperation with Ukrainian scientists and opening doors to students from Ukraine.  We also express our sincere admiration of those colleagues in Russia who protest against this criminal war, while knowing that they can be put behind bars for just expressing a disagreement with the actions of the Russian government.    We encourage all research institutions to support these brave scientists and help them as much as they possibly can.

We encourage all physicists, particularly the Russian-speaking ones, to confront  the Orwellian propaganda broadcast by the Russian TV and radio stations and spread by Russian internet trolls, as your voices can make difference.

We have relatives and friends in Russia, whom we love and deeply care about.  We are proud  to   descend from the nation of Landau and Tolstoy, Sakharov and Akhmatova, Ginzburg and Tchaikovsky, Shubnikov and Brodsky, Kapitza and Dostoevsky. Not the nation of Stalin and Putin.  We are having a difficult time  accepting the fact that the very country that lost millions of its citizens in the WW2 is now copying the behavior of the  regime that it paid such a dear price to defeat.  We believe that it is our responsibility to form a unified and unequivocal opposition to this war.

We encourage our colleagues  to make their voice heard and sign this open letter.

To the people of Ukraine – we are with you.

 

Andrey Chubukov, University of Minnesota

Leonid Levitov, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Dmitrii Maslov, University of Florida

Natalia Perkins, University of Minnesota

Oleg Starykh, University of Utah

Who We Are

Co-chairs

Joel L. Lebowitz, Rutgers University

Paul H. Plotz, M.D., Washington, DC

Walter Reich, George Washington University

Eugene Chudnovsky, Lehman College

Alexander Greer, Brooklyn College

Vice-chairs

Astronomy – Arno Penzias, New Enterprises Associates*

Biology – Max E. Gottesman, Columbia University

Chemistry – Zafra Lerman, MIMSAD Inc.

Computer Science – Rachelle Heller, The George Washington University

Computer Science – Jack Minker, University of Maryland, College Park

Engineering – Philip Sarachik, NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering

Mathematics – Simon Levin, Princeton University

Medical Sciences – J. Joseph Blum, Duke University

Honorary Board Members

Nancy Andrews, Duke University

David Baltimore, California Institute of Technology*

Alan J. Bard, University of Texas

Jacob Bigeleisen (deceased), SUNY, Stony Brook

Raoul Bott (deceased), Harvard University

Owen Chamberlain (deceased), University of California, Berkeley

Stanley Deser, Brandeis University

Edward Gerjuoy, University of Pittsburg

David Gross, (2004 Nobel Prize in Physics), Kavil Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara*

Pierre Hohenberg (deceased), New York University

Walter Kohn (deceased), University of California, Santa Barbara*

James Langer, University of California, Santa Barbara

Peter Lax, New York University

Louis Nirenberg, New York University

Marshall Nirenberg (deceased), National Institutes of Health*

Honorary Board Members

John C. Polanyi, University of Toronto*

Stuart Rice, University of Chicago

Sir Richard J. Roberts, (1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology & Medicine), New England Biolabs*

Myriam Sarachick, City College of New York

Harold Scheraga, Cornell University

Sylvan Schweber (deceased), Brandeis University

Maxine Singer, Carnegie Institution of Washington

Alfred I. Tauber, Boston University

Steven Weinberg, University of Texas, Austin*

Myrna Weissman, Columbia University

Rosalyn S. Yalow (deceased), Mount Sinai School of Medicine*

* Nobel laureate

Committee of Concerned Scientists

Public Affairs and Administrative Office
Carol Valoris, Executive Director
PO Box 3708 Silver Spring, MD  20918
Phone: (202) 812-8074
carolvaloris@concernedscientists.org