Fritz Cohen · Public domain

An American geophysicist who advised four U.S. presidents on science policy, Press served as Jimmy Carter's Science Advisor and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy from 1977 to 1981, after earlier work on the President's Science Advisory Committee under Kennedy and Johnson. He went on to two consecutive terms as president of the National Academy of Sciences, capping a career that also produced 160 scientific papers and the widely used textbooks Earth and Understanding Earth.