Born and raised in Montclair, astronaut Buzz Aldrin will be honored this autumn by the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce during its second annual Innovation Gala.
The iGALA 2.0 will also feature Shirley Ann Jackson, who served as president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission during the presidency of Bill Clinton, and Michio Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at CUNY, author of eight books, and host and science expert on numerous television shows.
The N.J. Chamber's gala will also celebrate science-fiction movies that inspired actual innovations.
The event will be held Oct. 26 at The Palace in Somerset.
"Buzz Aldrin is obviously a great New Jerseyan, the second man to walk on the moon," Chamber of Commerce Communications Manager Scott Goldstein told The Montclair Times. "We're excited to be bringing him back."
The Chamber will present its Lifetime Innovation Achievement Award to Aldrin, who flew on Apollo 11 and landed on the moon with Neil Armstrong on July 20, 1969.
The 46th anniversary of humankind's first lunar landing will occur 11 days from now.
Goldstein noted that Jackson will receive the N.J. Chamber's inaugural Alice H. Parker's Women Leaders in Innovation Award. Her accomplishments include working in New Jersey at Bell Laboratories and as a professor of physics at Rutgers University. Jackson was the second African-American woman in U.S. history to earn a doctorate in physics.
The Parker Award is named after Alice H. Parker, who resided in Morristown and developed "an early concept of the modern home heating system," according to "N.J. All-Time Greatest Innovators," an article in a N.J. Chamber publication. "Her system gave birth to the thermostat and the familiar forced-air furnaces in most homes today, replacing what was then the most common method for heating - cutting and burning wood in fireplaces or stoves."
"Very little is known about Alice Parker," observed Goldstein, who said she had received a certificate in 1910 from Howard University's academy. He urged anybody with knowledge of Parker to contact the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce.
A co-creator of string field theory, a branch of string theory, Michio Kaku hosts two weekly radio programs, "Science Fantastic" and "Explorations in Science." He's been a guest on many television programs, including "The Colbert Report" with Stephen Colbert of Montclair. Kaku will be iGALA 2.0's keynote speaker.
A N.J. Chamber release states: "In the weeks leading up to the gala, the N.J. Chamber will reveal the Top 15 inventions that were born out of science fiction movies, TV and books. Mark Twain, for example, uncannily described the Internet in a story he wrote in 1898. Jules Verne described an underwater vehicle that inspired the submarine in 1870 when he wrote 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.' And Star Trek's Captain James T. Kirk used a communicator on the 1960s show that inspired the cell phone.
"Many of the innovations inspired by science fiction were invented in New Jersey," the Chamber stated. "That's why we will celebrate."
Scott said Buzz Aldrin, Shirley Ann Jackson, and Michio Kaku epitomize the skills of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
"Innovation is the heart of the business community in New Jersey," Scott said.