National Geographic Bee

Biography

Paul Lucier was born way back in the 20^th century in upstate New York. He grew up in Pittsburgh, Houston, and London, England, where he learned to play football (soccer) and became a life-long fan of Chelsea, although he can no longer afford season tickets at Stamford Bridge. He returned to Texas to play soccer and to study Geophysics at Texas A&M. Upon graduation he decided to pass up that stable career with a multinational oil company and instead moved to Austin for its beer and BBQ, and to study History and Economics at the University of Texas. He then attended graduate school at Princeton University, where he worked under Charles C. Gillispie. When he finally finished (he was CCG's last student), his PhD thesis won the Princeton History Department's best dissertation award.

Lucier went back to London as a research fellow at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine and then received his first academic appointment at Birkbeck College teaching American history. He returned to the states to take up a visiting assistant professor position in the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he taught for seven years. In the early 21^st century, he accepted a fellowship at the now-defunct, but dearly missed, Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology at MIT and moved to Rhode Island. He has taught at the University of Rhode Island and been a consulting historian for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

When Lucier is not doing things scientific and historical, he will often be found on the soccer field. He holds a USSF "D" National License and coaches boys and girls (competitive and recreational) teams for the South County Youth Soccer Club. He is also a member of the Rhode Island state committee (serving as moderator and judge) of the National Geographic Bee.