Educators

What It Takes is a podcast series featuring intimate, revealing conversations with towering figures in almost every field: music, science, sports, politics, film, technology, literature, the military and social justice. These rare interviews have been recorded over the past 25 years by The Academy of Achievement. They offer the life stories and reflections of people who have had a huge impact on the world, and insights you can apply to your own life. Subscribe to the What It Takes podcast series at iTunes.com/WhatItTakes

Since the 1990s, Roger Tsien has revolutionized the fields of cell biology and neurobiology by designing fluorescent protein molecules to illuminate biochemical processes. The green fluorescent protein GFP, which occurs naturally in the jellyfish Aequorea Victoria, has been used in biochemical research since the 1960s, but work with GFP was long constrained by its single color and unstable light. Tsien was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a kaleidoscopic array of fluorescent molecules. When attached to other, less visible proteins, they enable scientists to track multiple biochemical processes simultaneously. As a teenager, the New York-born Tsien won first prize in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard and earned his Ph.D. in physiology at Cambridge University. Since 1989 he has been a professor at the University of California, San Diego, where he is an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 1994, Tsien identified a single-point mutation of the natural GFP molecule that produced a more stable and intense light, with greater variability in color, a discovery he reported in the Journal Nature. Over the next decade, he produced variants of GFP in a full spectrum of colors. His molecules are used in surgery and in Alzheimer's and cancer research. He was a co-founder of Aurora Biosciences Corporation, later acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals for roughly $600 million. In this podcast, recorded at the Top of the Hay, Hay-Adams Hotel, in Washington, D.C., during the 2012 International Achievement Summit, Dr. Tsien discusses the role of motivation and creativity in relation to his work building artificial molecules.

Salman Khan founded the nonprofit Khan Academy with the mission of providing free, high-quality education for “anyone, anywhere” in the world. Born in Metairie, Louisiana, to immigrant parents from India and Bangladesh, Khan graduated from MIT in 1998 with three degrees: one bachelor of science in mathematics; another in electrical engineering and computer science; and a master's in electrical engineering. After MIT, Khan worked in Silicon Valley at the height of the tech boom. When the bubble burst in 2000, he enrolled in Harvard Business School. After earning a master's in business administration, he became an analyst at a Boston-based hedge fund. The following year, as a side project, he began tutoring a young cousin in math, communicating by phone and using an interactive notepad. When others expressed interest in this method of instruction, he began posting videos of his hand-scribbled tutorials on YouTube. Demand took off, and in 2009 he quit his day job to commit himself fully to the not-for-profit Khan Academy. In October 2010, Khan was listed in Fortune’s annual “40 Under 40,” which recognizes business’s hottest rising stars, as well as Fast Company’s list of the “100 Most Creative People in Business.” He was recently profiled by 60 Minutes and recognized by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. His first book, The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined, was published this month.

Robert S. Langer is heralded as one of the most prolific inventors in the history of medicine, the father of controlled drug release and tissue engineering. His research laboratory at MIT is the largest biomedical engineering lab in the world, maintaining about $10 million in annual grants and over 100 researchers. His discoveries have saved countless lives and launched a $20 billion-a-year industry. Every year, 6,200 Americans die awaiting transplants of organs like the liver, heart and lung, but Robert Langer is creating a future where spare organs can be grown in the laboratory. IN addition to his endowed chair at MIT, he is a faculty member of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. In this podcast, recorded at the Top of the Hay, in Washington D.C.'s Hay-Adams Hotel, during the 2012 International Achievement Summit, he reflect on his career in science, the importance of the patent system, and his ideas about the treatment of cancer.

Robert S. Langer is heralded as one of the most prolific inventors in the history of medicine, the father of controlled drug release and tissue engineering. His research laboratory at MIT is the largest biomedical engineering lab in the world, maintaining about $10 million in annual grants and over 100 researchers. His discoveries have saved countless lives and launched a $20 billion-a-year industry. Every year, 6,200 Americans die awaiting transplants of organs like the liver, heart and lung, but Robert Langer is creating a future where spare organs can be grown in the laboratory. IN addition to his endowed chair at MIT, he is a faculty member of the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. In this podcast, recorded at the Top of the Hay, in Washington D.C.'s Hay-Adams Hotel, during the 2012 International Achievement Summit, he reflect on his career in science, the importance of the patent system, and his ideas about the treatment of cancer.

Prior to his service as President of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers enjoyed a brilliant career as an economist and public servant, culminating in a highly successful term as United States Secretary of the Treasury. The youngest tenured professor in Harvard's modern history, Dr. Summers was the first social scientist to win the prestigious Waterman Prize of the National Science Foundation. He was serving as chief economist of the World Bank when President Bill Clinton tapped him to serve as Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs. In 1999, the Senate confirmed Summers's appointment as Secretary of the Treasury, the chief economic adviser to the President and the government's chief financial officer. As Secretary, Summers effected a historic paying down of the national debt, worked for reform of the International Monetary Fund and advocated debt relief for the world's poorest countries. As President of Harvard University, he led an unprecedented $4 billion capital drive and has initiated the construction of an enormous new campus across the Charles River. Today he serves in the administration of President Barack Obama as Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, responsible for the coordination of the United States' domestic and international economic policy.

Prior to his service as President of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers enjoyed a brilliant career as an economist and public servant, culminating in a highly successful term as United States Secretary of the Treasury. The youngest tenured professor in Harvard's modern history, Dr. Summers was the first social scientist to win the prestigious Waterman Prize of the National Science Foundation. He was serving as chief economist of the World Bank when President Bill Clinton tapped him to serve as Undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs. In 1999, the Senate confirmed Summers's appointment as Secretary of the Treasury, the chief economic adviser to the President and the government's chief financial officer. As Secretary, Summers effected a historic paying down of the national debt, worked for reform of the International Monetary Fund and advocated debt relief for the world's poorest countries. As President of Harvard University, he led an unprecedented $4 billion capital drive and has initiated the construction of an enormous new campus across the Charles River. Today he serves in the administration of President Barack Obama as Director of the National Economic Council and Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, responsible for the coordination of the United States' domestic and international economic policy.

A daughter of Korean immigrants, Michelle Rhee graduated from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and began her career in education as an outstanding member of Teach for America. She founded the New Teacher Project in 1997, recruiting and training teachers for disadvantaged communities. In ten years, the Project had expanded to 40 programs in 20 states and recruited more than 10,000 teachers. In 2007, she was appointed Chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public school system by newly elected Mayor Adrian Fenty. She immediately drew fire from critics who resented her as an outsider, but she has persevered in the face of all resistance, replacing entrenched teachers, principals and administrators whose performance she found unsatisfactory. In the face of determined resistance to change, he has won national acclaim for her efforts to turn around one of the nation's most troubled school systems.

A daughter of Korean immigrants, Michelle Rhee graduated from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and began her career in education as an outstanding member of Teach for America. She founded the New Teacher Project in 1997, recruiting and training teachers for disadvantaged communities. In ten years, the Project had expanded to 40 programs in 20 states and recruited more than 10,000 teachers. In 2007, she was appointed Chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public school system by newly elected Mayor Adrian Fenty. She immediately drew fire from critics who resented her as an outsider, but she has persevered in the face of all resistance, replacing entrenched teachers, principals and administrators whose performance she found unsatisfactory. In the face of determined resistance to change, he has won national acclaim for her efforts to turn around one of the nation's most troubled school systems.

Over the last 40 years, Jonathan Spence of Yale University has become the West's leading authority on Chinese history. His books, such as The Gate of Heavenly Peace and The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci, have brought remote times and places to life for the general reading public, while The Search for Modern China has become a standard text in universities around the world. The undergraduate course he teaches on the modern history of China is among the most popular ever given at Yale. Year after year, a new class of students packs the lecture hall to enjoy his spellbinding presentation. Born and educated in England, Spence did not discover his passion for Chinese studies until he came to Yale University, from Clare College, Cambridge, on a Mellon Fellowship. While still a graduate student, he became the first Westerner to study the confidential correspondence of the Manchu (Qing Dynasty) Emperors, preserved at the Palace Museum in Taiwan. The resulting dissertation became his first book, Ts'ao Yin and the K'ang-hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master, published in 1966. The same year, Spence joined the Yale history faculty. It is Spence's distinctive achievement to make the life of a single person -- whether an emperor or a commoner -- reveal the essence of an entire era. His powers of description far exceed those of the conventional academic historian, and he brings historical figures to life as vividly as characters in a novel. Emperor of China: Self-Portrait of K'ang-hsi presents a Qing Dynasty monarch in his own words, and reached an audience beyond the world of China scholars. The Death of Woman Wang affords us a view of Qing society as seen through the lives of ordinary people, and has become a classic, read by nearly all students of Chinese history. His latest book is Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man. Professor Spence lives most of the year in West Haven, Connecticut with his wife, Annping Chin, also a scholar of Chinese history. Since 1974, he has made frequent trips to China to further his research. In recent years, he has also served as a visiting professor at Beijing University.

When Susan Hockfield was a student, women in the sciences had few role models. As a senior at the University of Rochester, she had come up with an idea for an interesting experiment, but lacked the confidence to carry it out herself. "People like me don't do these things," she remembers thinking. Fortunately, a sympathetic professor encouraged her, and she resolved to pursue a career in the sciences. Today, she is a neuroscientist of international reputation, and the president of one of the world's leading research universities. Dr. Hockfield's research has focused on the development of the brain and central nervous system. She pioneered new technology in brain research and has discovered proteins that regulate structural changes in the neurons and influence the movement of cancer cells in the brain. Among other insights, her work may open new avenues for the treatment of the deadly brain cancer glioma. When she was chosen to head the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she was not only the first woman to hold the post, but the first biologist to head a faculty better known for its achievements in physics and electrical engineering. Although her appointment reflects the ever-increasing importance of biology and biomedical research, she is also winning praise for her leadership of the MIT Energy Initiative, a massive research program that may well transform the way we power our homes, cars and businesses. In this podcast, recorded at the 2008 International Achievement Summit in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, Dr. Susan Hockfield discusses the importance of collaborative thinking in both science and academic leadership.

"F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives. I think I've proved him wrong. And all because I refused to settle for a one-act existence, the 30 years I taught English in various New York City high schools." Frank McCourt was already retired when he published his first book at age 66. Angela's Ashes, a memoir of his impoverished boyhood in Limerick, Ireland, shot to the top of the best-seller lists and remained there for over a year. Angela's Ashes won McCourt the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. It was still topping the paperback lists when McCourt's second book 'Tis hit the bookstores, and the best-seller lists. A third bestseller, Teacher Man, recounts his years teaching in the New York City public schools. "After retiring from teaching I wanted a second act, not a rocker in Florida," McCourt says. After a lifetime of helping young people find their own voices, Frank McCourt has found his own, and millions of readers have found a friend to treasure.

One day in 1993, an exhausted mountain climber stumbled from the slopes of the treacherous peak known as K2 into an isolated Pakistani village. The impoverished villagers sheltered and fed him until he was well enough to move on. When he learned they had no school for their children, he vowed to return and build them one. In the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, war and poverty have limited education for all, while custom and prejudice have denied education to women altogether. With no other means to escape a life of crushing poverty, many young people become recruits for the Taliban or Al Qaeda. Unfazed by the immensity of the problem, Greg Mortenson founded the Central Asia Institute to promote education and literacy, especially for girls, in this remote and volatile region. Fundamentalist mullahs, unwilling to see Muslim children taught by outsiders they regard as infidels, issued religious edicts -- fatwas -- to put a stop to Mortenson's project. On one mission, he was kidnapped and held hostage for eight days. On another, he escaped the crossfire of feuding warlords by hiding for eight hours under a heap of stinking animal hides, in a truck bound for the tannery. His efforts have often been misunderstood by his own countrymen as well. The CIA has investigated his operations, and he has received hate mail and even death threats from misinformed Americans who resent his efforts to educate Muslim children. Undeterred, he has now founded more than 60 schools, providing educational opportunities to over 25,000 children, more than half of them girls who might otherwise have received no education at all. The Minnesota-born Mortenson was raised by his missionary parents on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. He served in the army for 12 years before embarking on the series of mountain-climbing expeditions that led him to Pakistan and his life's calling. He has related the story of his adventurous life and his humanitarian vision in the gripping memoir Three Cups of Tea, still number one after more than a year on The New York Times bestseller list. By showing the youth of Central Asia the way to a better life, Greg Mortenson has proved that in the war on terror, education is the most powerful weapon of all.

One day in 1993, an exhausted mountain climber stumbled from the slopes of the treacherous peak known as K2 into an isolated Pakistani village. The impoverished villagers sheltered and fed him until he was well enough to move on. When he learned they had no school for their children, he vowed to return and build them one. In the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan, war and poverty have limited education for all, while custom and prejudice have denied education to women altogether. With no other means to escape a life of crushing poverty, many young people become recruits for the Taliban or Al Qaeda. Unfazed by the immensity of the problem, Greg Mortenson founded the Central Asia Institute to promote education and literacy, especially for girls, in this remote and volatile region. Fundamentalist mullahs, unwilling to see Muslim children taught by outsiders they regard as infidels, issued religious edicts -- fatwas -- to put a stop to Mortenson's project. On one mission, he was kidnapped and held hostage for eight days. On another, he escaped the crossfire of feuding warlords by hiding for eight hours under a heap of stinking animal hides, in a truck bound for the tannery. His efforts have often been misunderstood by his own countrymen as well. The CIA has investigated his operations, and he has received hate mail and even death threats from misinformed Americans who resent his efforts to educate Muslim children. Undeterred, he has now founded more than 60 schools, providing educational opportunities to over 25,000 children, more than half of them girls who might otherwise have received no education at all. The Minnesota-born Mortenson was raised by his missionary parents on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. He served in the army for 12 years before embarking on the series of mountain-climbing expeditions that led him to Pakistan and his life's calling. He has related the story of his adventurous life and his humanitarian vision in the gripping memoir Three Cups of Tea, still number one after more than a year on The New York Times bestseller list. By showing the youth of Central Asia the way to a better life, Greg Mortenson has proved that in the war on terror, education is the most powerful weapon of all.

This podcast presents an exceptional panel discussion recorded at the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. The panelists are among the nation's most distinguished leaders in the field of education policy. Margaret Spellings was the U.S. Secretary of Education from 2005 to 2009. Longtime Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley turned around a troubled school system by obtaining unprecedented direct control over the schools, earning national acclaim for his innovative approach to issues of education in America's third largest city. The President of New York University, Dr. John Sexton, is a former professor of religion, an attorney, law school dean and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The distinguished neuroscientist Dr. Susan Hockfield is the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Shirley Jackson, a nuclear physicist and former Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is now the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the nation’s oldest institute of technology. The discussion is moderated by David Gergen. An adviser to presidents of both major parties, Mr. Gergen served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. He is now Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

This podcast presents an exceptional panel discussion recorded at the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. The panelists are among the nation's most distinguished leaders in the field of education policy. Margaret Spellings was the U.S. Secretary of Education from 2005 to 2009. Longtime Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley turned around a troubled school system by obtaining unprecedented direct control over the schools, earning national acclaim for his innovative approach to issues of education in America's third largest city. The President of New York University, Dr. John Sexton, is a former professor of religion, an attorney, law school dean and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The distinguished neuroscientist Dr. Susan Hockfield is the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Shirley Jackson, a nuclear physicist and former Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is now the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the nation’s oldest institute of technology. The discussion is moderated by David Gergen. An adviser to presidents of both major parties, Mr. Gergen served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. He is now Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

This podcast presents an exceptional panel discussion recorded at the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. The panelists are among the nation's most distinguished leaders in the field of education policy. Margaret Spellings was the U.S. Secretary of Education from 2005 to 2009. Longtime Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley turned around a troubled school system by obtaining unprecedented direct control over the schools, earning national acclaim for his innovative approach to issues of education in America's third largest city. The President of New York University, Dr. John Sexton, is a former professor of religion, an attorney, law school dean and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The distinguished neuroscientist Dr. Susan Hockfield is the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Shirley Jackson, a nuclear physicist and former Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is now the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the nation’s oldest institute of technology. The discussion is moderated by David Gergen. An adviser to presidents of both major parties, Mr. Gergen served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. He is now Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

This podcast presents an exceptional panel discussion recorded at the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C. The panelists are among the nation's most distinguished leaders in the field of education policy. Margaret Spellings was the U.S. Secretary of Education from 2005 to 2009. Longtime Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley turned around a troubled school system by obtaining unprecedented direct control over the schools, earning national acclaim for his innovative approach to issues of education in America's third largest city. The President of New York University, Dr. John Sexton, is a former professor of religion, an attorney, law school dean and Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The distinguished neuroscientist Dr. Susan Hockfield is the President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Shirley Jackson, a nuclear physicist and former Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is now the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the nation’s oldest institute of technology. The discussion is moderated by David Gergen. An adviser to presidents of both major parties, Mr. Gergen served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. He is now Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

At the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C., the Academy of Achievement presented a panel discussion with social entrepreneurs who have founded nonprofit organizations to provide quality education or nutrition to disadvantaged youth. The panel includes Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp, as well as Mike Feinberg, Kirsten Lodal, Jon Schnur and Billy Shore. Wendy Kopp was still an undergraduate at Princeton when she created a plan to build a national teachers corps -- drawn from the top students in our best universities -- to teach in some of our neediest communities. Today thousands of members of Teach for America are working where their talents and education are needed most. Mike Feinberg was a Teach for America volunteer who remained in Houston, Texas to found a new kind of college preparatory academy in the inner city. His Knowledge is Power Program – KIPP -- soon spread to 20 states and is now operating 99 locally run college preparatory schools in low income communities. As a sophomore at Yale, Kirsten Lodal founded the National Student Partnerships, the nation’s first year-round student-led volunteer service organization, mobilizing students to staff drop-in social service resource centers in low income communities, providing assistance with job training, housing, health care, child care, and transportation. Jon Schnur is the founder and CEO of New Leaders for New Schools, a national nonprofit organization that has placed hundreds of principals and assistant principals across the country. Bill Shore is the founder and executive director of Share Our Strength, the nation's leading organization working to end childhood hunger in the United States. The discussion was led by David Gergen, Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. An adviser to presidents of both major parties, Mr. Gergen served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.

At the 2007 International Achievement Summit in Washington, D.C., the Academy of Achievement presented a panel discussion with social entrepreneurs who have founded nonprofit organizations to provide quality education or nutrition to disadvantaged youth. The panel includes Teach for America founder Wendy Kopp, as well as Mike Feinberg, Kirsten Lodal, Jon Schnur and Billy Shore. Wendy Kopp was still an undergraduate at Princeton when she created a plan to build a national teachers corps -- drawn from the top students in our best universities -- to teach in some of our neediest communities. Today thousands of members of Teach for America are working where their talents and education are needed most. Mike Feinberg was a Teach for America volunteer who remained in Houston, Texas to found a new kind of college preparatory academy in the inner city. His Knowledge is Power Program – KIPP -- soon spread to 20 states and is now operating 99 locally run college preparatory schools in low income communities. As a sophomore at Yale, Kirsten Lodal founded the National Student Partnerships, the nation’s first year-round student-led volunteer service organization, mobilizing students to staff drop-in social service resource centers in low income communities, providing assistance with job training, housing, health care, child care, and transportation. Jon Schnur is the founder and CEO of New Leaders for New Schools, a national nonprofit organization that has placed hundreds of principals and assistant principals across the country. Bill Shore is the founder and executive director of Share Our Strength, the nation's leading organization working to end childhood hunger in the United States. The discussion was led by David Gergen, Director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. An adviser to presidents of both major parties, Mr. Gergen served in the administrations of Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.