Seven months after he was hired as president of the Salk Institute, Thomas Pollard has finally settled in at the modernist scientific citadel with its legendary view of the Pacific Ocean. Photo: Jim Cox/The Salk Inst. FOCUSED MISSION: Thomas Pollard’s mandates are to bolster the endowment and improve scientific leadership. Pollard officially began in his post at the San Diego laboratory on July 1. After months of commuting, the scientist has finally moved from Baltimore, where he was ch

Discoveries While Fighting To Receive Recognition And Respect In Tucson, Ariz., David Levy is a freelance writer and educator who spends his nights watching the desert sky for comets. STRUGGLE: Forrest Mims III, shown during a trip to the Mauna Loa Observatory, has encountered resistance to hisefforts to work at the site. In Miami, Randy McCranie is a postal worker who has conducted extensive investigations as a field biologist in Honduras. And in Seguin, Texas, Forrest M. Mims III is a pro

For much of the past year, policymakers in Congress have focused on Republican plans to slash government spending and balance the federal budget. STRATEGY: UC president Richard C. Atkinson says he plans to continue to "seek the very best people". Whatever the funding levels for fiscal 1996, the Republicans have proposed deep cuts in federal spending for scientific research into the next millennium. Such spending has amounted to roughly $73 billion annually in recent years. But the "Contract W

Struggles With Questions Of Leader's Role Author: Bruce V. Bigelow The Salk Institute has long been known as a premier center for biomedical research, but lately the San Diego laboratory has acquired a reputation in scientific circles as the home of hungry headhunters. Efforts by the independent, nonprofit laboratory to recruit and retain a new leader over the past seven years have repeatedly misfired. The Salk's fruitless quest hit home again on September 1, when Francis Crick stepped down f