James Michelin Seminar
He is author of "Steve Jobs" (2011), "Einstein: His Life and Universe" (2007), "Benjamin Franklin: An American Life" (2003), and "Kissinger: A Biography" (1992) and coauthor of "The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made" (1986).
Isaacson is a graduate of Harvard College and of Pembroke College of Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He began his career at The Sunday Times of London and then the New Orleans Times - Picayune/States-Item. He joined TIME in 1978 and served as a political correspondent, national editor and editor of new media before becoming the magazine's 14th editor in 1996. He became chairman and CEO of CNN in 2001, and then president and CEO of the Aspen Institute in 2003.
He is the chairman of the board of Teach for America, which recruits recent college graduates to teach in underserved communities. He was appointed by President Barak Obama and confirmed by the Senate to serve as the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and other international broadcasts of the United States, a position he held until 2012. He is vice-chair of Partners for a New Beginning, a public-private group tasked with forging ties between the United States and the Muslim world. He is on the board of United Airlines, Tulane University and the Overseers of Harvard University. From 2005 to 2007, after Hurricane Katrina, he was the vice-chair of the Louisiana Recovery Authority.
The Michelin lectures were established in 1992 by New York designer Bonnie Cashin in memory of her uncle, James Michelin, who had always hoped to attend Caltech. The purpose of the lectures is to promote a creative interaction between the arts and sciences.