User:DrVictorSAlpher

Victor S. Alpher, Ph.D. was born in 1954 in Washington, D.C. He is the son of Ralph A. Alpher, Ph.D. In 1948, Dr. R. A. Alpher's dissertation at the George Washington University provided a physical model for the Big Bang and the original of the chemical elements. He also predicted the existence of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, which was observed in 1964 by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson of Bell Labs, in New Jersey.

Dr. Victor S. Alpher received his B.A. in Psychology, magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia. He has a wide range of academic interests and background, including anthropology, linguistic, history, and music. He played music professionally and is a member of the Local 257 of the American Federation of Musicisns, Nashville, Tennessee. His M.A. in Clinical Psychology was awarded in 1983, and Ph.D. in 1985, from Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

From 1985 to 1986, Dr. Alpher completed a Psychology Residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center Department of Psychiatry, in San Antonio, Texas. Thereafter, he taught at the University of Texas Medical School and Health Science Center in Houston, Texas. From 1986 through 1988, he was Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and from 1989 through 1995 was Clinical Assistant Professor. Beginning in January, 1989, he has been an independent practitioner of clinical nsuropsychology, and consultant in gerontology. He is Board Certified in Clinical Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology (Ret.). He retired from practice in 1995.

Beginning in 2004, Dr. Alpher began service as his father's professional assistant. During the last years of his father's life, he assisted in arranging for Dr. Ralph Alpher's appearance in a major documentary for TV-Globo in Brazil, and a documentary "Beyond the Big Bang, which aired on the History Channel in September, 2007, just weeks after Dr. Ralph Alpher's passing, and after he was awarded the National Medal of Science.

Since 2007, Dr. Alpher has authored a number of biographical articles about his father. In addition, he has written and publiashed several papers about his father's Classified work for the U.S. Navy during World War II. Dr. Ralph Alpher participated in the development of the Proximity Fuze, the design of degaussing systems for U.S. Navy and Army warships, and a new magnetically influenced torpedo, beginning this work on 8/1/44. For his contributions to the U.S. Navy, R. Alpher received two Naval Ordnance Development awards--one in 1945, and a second in 1946.

Dr. Victor S. Alpher has authored more than 30 peer-reviewed articles in psychology jourals, on personality assesment, dissociative disorders, and the effects of abuse on personality development. His most recent peer-reviewed article, "Ralph A. Alpher, Robert C. Herman, the the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation," appeared in the September, 2012 "Physics in Perspective," a major scholarly history of science journal.