J. Patrick Kociolek, the lauded visionary behind the super-green reinvention of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, doesn’t let grass grow under his feet, at least not for long. In mid- 2007, before the sod was installed on the hilly planted roof of the $488- million natural history museum, Kociolek requested a new assignment. Having been the institution’s executive director for a decade—and the key person leading the development of the new facility instead of simply a seismic retrofit—he wanted to return to his research scientist roots.
Kociolek, a diatom geek, joined the academy out of graduate school in 1989 to fill the world’s only endowed chair for the study of the microscopic aquatic plant. He is fascinated by the diatom’s ability to dissolve glass out of water and turn it into a hard cell wall with holes. “They make a great filter,” he says.