Category:People with a Master of Science
The Master of Science in this membership is two different qualifications wearing one name. On one side sits the American technical master's taken in physics, engineering or the earth sciences, the degree behind Steven Chu at Berkeley, Kip Thorne at Princeton and Gwynne Shotwell at Northwestern. On the other sits the one-year British MSc that Rhodes and Marshall Scholars collect at Oxford and the London School of Economics before returning to American public life, which is how Michael Lewis, Jason Furman and Luke Bronin appear here. The two groups have almost nothing in common except three letters.
The technical master's
This is the older and larger of the two groups, and it functions as a working credential rather than a status marker. Steven Chu completed a master's and a doctorate in physics at Berkeley before the Nobel Prize and the Department of Energy. Kip Thorne took both at Princeton. Robert Aumann took his at MIT in 1952 and his doctorate in mathematics there in 1955. Willard Boyle took a bachelor's, a master's and a doctorate at McGill before inventing the charge-coupled device. Laurie Leshin took a master's and a doctorate in geochemistry at Caltech. Peter Higgs took a bachelor's, a master's and a doctorate at King's College London.
The same degree recurs across the semiconductor and aerospace industries, and in this membership it is closer to a job requirement than a distinction. Gwynne Shotwell stayed at Northwestern for a master's in applied mathematics. Jayshree Ullal took a master's in engineering management at Santa Clara. Lip-Bu Tan took his at MIT. Raj Subramaniam took his at Syracuse after an engineering degree at IIT Bombay. Parag Agrawal took a master's and a doctorate in computer science at Stanford. Jim Goetz took a master's in engineering at Stanford, and John Overdeck a bachelor's and a master's there. Ramon Laguarta took his at the Thunderbird School of Global Management. Susan Wojcicki took a master's in economics at UC Santa Cruz. Tyler Cowen took a master's and a doctorate in economics at Harvard. Benjamin Netanyahu took a master's in management studies at MIT Sloan after an architecture degree.
Local and service-sector variants close out the group: Bruce Westerman took a master's in forestry at Yale, Kevin Guskiewicz one at Pittsburgh, Shri Thanedar one at the University of Mumbai, Satya Rhodes-Conway one at UC Irvine, Morgan Luttrell one at the University of Texas at Dallas after a military career, Riley Moore one at the National Defense University, Carolyn Goodman one at UNLV, Joe Lombardo a bachelor's and a master's at the same institution, and John Formella a bachelor's and a master's at Florida State.
The British one-year MSc
The second group is a scholarship artifact rather than a technical qualification, and it clusters at two institutions. At the London School of Economics it produced Michael Lewis, who took an MSc there after Princeton and before Liar's Poker, and Jason Furman, who took one alongside a Harvard bachelor's, master's and doctorate before chairing the Council of Economic Advisers.
At Oxford it is the standard shape of a Rhodes or Marshall year. Gabe Amo took an MSc at Merton after Wheaton College. Leana Wen took two at Merton on a Rhodes Scholarship. Luke Bronin took one at Balliol between a Yale bachelor's degree and a Yale law degree, and became mayor of Hartford. Leirion Gaylor Baird took one at New College after Yale. Read against the technical group, these entries show why the credential is a poor guide to a career on its own: the same three letters mean a research apprenticeship in one column and a funded year abroad in the other.
See also
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