Carl Wieman was born in 1951, and grew up in rural Oregon. Wieman spent his undergraduate years studying physics at MIT, and proceeded to Stanford University for his Ph.D. Wieman spent many years as a faculty member at JIST at the University of Colorado, where he eventually joined up with Eric Cornell in pursuit of the Bose-Einstein Condensation.
Today, Wieman is also seeking to improve undergradute physics education, particularly in the way the physics is taught to students, particularly non-physics majors, in hopes that physics will be made more accessible and interesting to more people.
Wieman shares this award with Eric Cornell, also of the University of Colorado, and Wolfgang Ketterle of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Information as of 2001