Anyone have any half-famous or renown Profs teaching you right now?

Most of my Profs this semester are fairly young my "Calculus" teacher is probably low-mid 30s, and both my "Linear Algebra" and "Accelerated Introduction to Computer Programming" teachers are at the most 30 more likely in the 26-30 area though, and they're all great but too young to have made a name for themselves unless you're Von Neumann.

My LA teacher is pretty cool; he does a lot of contributing for open-source projects like Linux, KDE and OpenSSH among other stuff.

But my "Great Ideas in Computing" is pretty well known (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Borodin), probably the coolest thing is that he won the CRM-Field's Medal this year.

Anyone else?

Not really famous, but my physics prof has his doctorate and did all sorts of cool shit for government agencies, some of which was declassified and he told us about. He mentioned working on a project for shooting down satellites with lasers in the middle of the desert.

Other than that, not really. I had to take a shitty VHS video class with a "famous professor" from somewhere close for economics. He really sucked, stammered, got confused frequently, and trailed off even in the videos.

My Pharmacology professor has an Alzheimer's drug in the late stages of clinical testing.

He's the shit when it comes to Alzheimer's/Schizophrenia.

Both of my freshman year biology teachers did a lot of fundamental research for a long, long time(one was late 60's, the other in his 70's when they taught me, so they had been researching for 30-40 years). The one in his 70's actually met Watson and Crick soon after they figured out the structure of DNA(he actually knew all the side players, including a female scientist who didn't get any credit, even though she was as important as Crick or Watson to the discovery). The prof in his 60's did a lot of research on fruit flies.

My biochem professor right now is one of the more interesting profs I've ever had. He's German, got a doctorate in Physics, then decided he wanted to study medicine, so he went and got an MD, and now he's doing protein research and teaching biochemistry in the states.

one of my lecturers is a judge on this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Inventors) show. she is V. Sahajwalla

edit: it just so happens that she won some science award recently. i got an email that was emailed to everyone in the engineering faculty

Dear all,

Veena Sahajwalla, has been awarded first prize in the Engineering
Sciences Category at the recent inaugural New South Wales Scientist of
the Year awards. The award was made to Veena for research in developing
environmentally friendly technologies which use waste plastic to replace
coke and coal in steelmaking. It was presented by Tony Stuart, Minister
for Small Business, Minister for Science and Medical Research, and
Minister Assisting the Minister for Health (Cancer). The aim of the
Awards is recognise and reward the state's leading researchers for
cutting edge work that generates economic, health, environmental or
technological benefits for NSW.

Well done Veena!

Cheers

Mark

One of my professors, Paul Baum, formulated the well-known Baum-Connes Conjecture with the very well-known Alain Connes. Well, I guess I should say well-known if you're a mathematician or know a lot about math.

One of my MLK studies professors ended up being arrested by the FBI and attempted assassination by the CIA in early 70s (or so he claims)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maulana_Karenga

Had him for a GE class. He really bugged me actually, seemed to hate white people.

http://www.science.utah.edu/stangnews.html

That's about it. :(

I've be given guest lectures by Peter Doherty - a Nobel Laureate currently in our microbiology/immunology department - when I was still doing Micro, but I don't think he actually takes classes. (I'd be surprised)
As for who's teaching me right now - I have no idea where most of then stand in their fields.

One of my professors is a B52 pilot in the Air Force and dropped bombs on Iraq & Afghanistan during the Iraq war.

I know he's not famous or renown but I think being a B52 pilot is way cooler.

One of my professors helped discover the tau neutrino, he formulated the experiment.

um, my old sax teacher was the lead alto player in the airmen of note for awhile and my current one is second alto in the army blues.

Greg Graffin.

Greg Graffin.

You lucky son of a bitch.

Haha, one of my professors directed a children's movie that was somewhat successful. He does run the drama/tv program and teaches humanities.

If you want to go back to high school my band director played with the Blue Devils and is sponsored by Vic Firth.

my english teacher is related to ayn rand. O_O

My Ancient Rome professor commentated for some PBS documentary with Sigourney Weaver narrating. He's also referenced all over the Wikipedia page for Augustus.

My geography professor apparently wrote some shit for an encyclopedia.

A visiting professor I took a seminar class with was Bush's deputy secretary of education.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/hickoke-bio.html

That's about it.

http://www.mtt.org/awards/02fellows/glisson.htm
http://www.comm.utoronto.ca/tons/2006-7/JDaigle.html

Daigle is currently the Associate Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials.

my english teacher is related to ayn rand. O_O

What's the relation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journal_of_the_American_Chemical_Society

Actually it turns out that my OChem 1 class is taught by the editor of what is apparently the biggest journal in the field. :/