(PO80).  Applied physicist Robert “Bob” Buhrman, M.S. ’69, Ph.D. ’73, the John Edson Sweet Memorial Professor of Engineering Emeritus and Cornell’s second senior vice provost for research, and vice president for technology transfer and intellectual property, who helped expand emerging science and engineering programs, and obtain funding for research, died April 13 in Rochester, New York. He was 75.

“Bob Buhrman was a visionary and effective leader for more than 50 years at Cornell, helping to organize numerous research centers, serving as director of Applied and Engineering Physics and as vice provost for research,” said Dan Ralph, Ph.D. ’93, the F.R. Newman Professor of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S). “He was a valued mentor to countless students and young faculty, providing wisdom on how to succeed in science and engineering.”

The Joint Institute for High Temperature, RAS Directorate informs with regret that on December 25, 2020, the head of the Laboratory of Superconducting and Converting Technology, Doctor of Technical Sciences, Professor, full member of the Academy of Electrotechnical of the Russian Federation, Sergey Igorevich Kopylov, suddenly died.

In 1979, S.I., Kopylov graduated from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute, worked in the department of applied superconductivity of the IVTAN USSR, where he began research and the creation of superconducting magnetic systems. In 1990, Sergei Igorevich was invited to the USA at the University of Madison, where he was engaged in computational and experimental research of superconducting cables and model superconducting magnets. The ultimate goal of all these works was the development of a record superconducting inductive storage with a winding diameter of 72 m. In 2005 he got his Doctor of Technical Sciences degree. S. I. Kopylov was a high-class leader and an established scientist who enjoyed the highest authority among professionals. He was a remarkable person, an outstanding scientist, teacher and organizer of science.

(PO76).  Rafael Navarro was born in the middle of the last century in Teruel, a small city south of Zaragoza, northern Spain. His passion for science brought him to the University of Zaragoza, first as a student and later as a teacher and researcher. He was a Professor with strong convictions about how the University should evolve. He was always faithful to these ideas, taking a step forward and trying to put them into practice from numerous management positions at all levels: Director of the Department of Materials Science and Technology and Fluids, Director of the former Engineering School, member of the Governing Council and the University Senate, and, more recently, as an Academician at the Zaragoza Royal Academy of Sciences.

His research career began in the Low Temperature Physics group, together with Professor Domingo González and with the group of Professor Jos De Jongh, at the University of Leiden, where he received his Ph.D. in the field of magnetism. Years later he was instrumental towards the establishment of the Institute of Materials Science of Aragon (CSIC-University of Zaragoza), where he started a research group in the field of superconductivity, with initial activity linked to the development of advanced processing and characterization methods for low and high T_c superconducting materials, as well as cryogenic instrumentation applications. The development of mechanical and laser texturing methods of high T_c superconductors, as well as the interpretation of their physical properties, are among his outstanding contributions to the  Superconductivity and Materials Science disciplines. He was a foremost, recognized expert in the knowledge of the mechanisms that explain the behaviour of materials and showed great versatility to approach the development of applications, starting from a sound theoretical point of view. Even in this last year, while struggling with his illness, he was intensely involved in contributing to the fundamental and practical understanding of the processes that drive the interaction of power lasers with the surface of materials.

Rafael, Rafa for the people who have come across him, was, above all, a close person of superb human quality. Outside of his professional duties, he had a great interest in culture, cinema and mountain hiking.  He was very special, someone that always received you warmly, would listen to you and with whom it was possible to have transcendental conversations about life. In essence, those of us who were fortunate enough to interact with Rafa, are profoundly influenced by his wisdom, tolerance and great human qualities. These have helped improve our professional and personal character for the better.

Great friend and colleague, you will remain in our memories, we will always miss you.

February 25, 2020 (PO71).  Award-winning engineer and physicist Alvin Tollestrup, who played an instrumental role in developing the Tevatron as the world’s leading high-energy physics accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and founding member of the Collider Detector at Fermilab collaboration, died on Feb. 9 of cancer. He was 95.

Tollestrup led the pioneering work of designing and testing 1,000 superconducting magnets used in the Tevatron, which operated from 1983 until 2011 and for 25 years was the world’s most powerful particle collider. This was the first large-scale application of superconductivity worldwide.

“Alvin’s impact on the laboratory and on high-energy physics was just exceptional, and the development of technology with regard to the superconducting magnets had a tremendous impact on accelerators,” said Fermilab senior scientist emeritus Herman White. “All who knew him, socially and professionally, found him to be engaging, thoughtful and someone with a long, important history of working in the research community and here at Fermilab.”

The Tevatron led to the discovery of two fundamental particles — the top quark and the tau neutrino. The top quark, discovered in 1995, was the last undiscovered particle of the six-member quark family that explains the composition of protons, neutrons and other particles. Scientists worldwide had sought the top quark since the discovery of the bottom quark at Fermilab in 1977. The discovery of the tau neutrino with the Tevatron accelerator followed in 2000.

Tollestrup was born March 22, 1924, in Los Angeles, California. He received his bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Utah in 1944. After service in the U.S. Navy, he entered graduate school at the California Institute of Technology, where he earned his Ph.D. in physics in 1950. His doctoral adviser was William A. Fowler, who shared the 1983 Nobel Prize in physics. Tollestrup then took a position at Caltech to build the electron synchrotron, a type of particle accelerator. At the time it was the highest-energy synchrotron in the world, starting at 500 million electronvolts, or MeV, finally reaching 1,300 MeV.

He joined the Caltech faculty as an assistant professor of physics in 1953. While on sabbatical at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory, from 1957-58, he helped plan and execute the first experiments on the lab’s 600-MeV cyclotron particle accelerator. The work led to the first observations of the electron decay mode of the pion (a subatomic particle consisting of up and down quarks and antiquarks). He became an associate professor at Caltech in 1958 and a full professor in 1962.

Tollestrup arrived at Fermilab in July 1975 on another sabbatical, intending to stay only six months. He ended up stretching the sabbatical to two years, during which time he worked on superconducting accelerator technology.

He joined the Fermilab staff following his sabbatical and in 1978 became head of the newly created Collider Detector Facility. He later became a founding member of the CDF collaboration, serving as its co-spokesperson from its inception in 1983 until 1992. He was instrumental in organizing the CDF collaboration, which initially consisted of 13 institutions and 87 physicists from the United States, Italy and Japan. His recruiting strategy included producing an “Uncle Alvin Wants You!” poster (see page 5).

During the 1990s Tollestrup also became a founding member of the Neutrino Factory and Muon Collider collaboration, which today is known as the Muon Accelerator Program. MAP is devoted to developing and testing the demanding technologies and innovative concepts needed to discover and explore exciting new regions of fundamental physics.

In 2009, along with Florida State University’s David Larbalestier, Tollestrup successfully launched and led the Very High Field Superconducting Magnet Collaboration. Its purpose was to study the applications of high-temperature superconductors to accelerator superconducting magnets.

After only two years and $4 million in funding, the collaboration significantly increased the current density of a bismuth-based superconducting material that would be needed for the potential next-generation of accelerators and new cutting-edge technologies for applications in industry and medicine.

Tollestrup received many honors during his career, including the National Medal of Technology — the nation’s highest honor for technological achievement — and election to the National Academy of Sciences. Tollestrup received the Robert R. Wilson Prize of the American Physical Society for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators in recognition of his contributions to the development of the Tevatron’s superconducting magnets. Other honors include Caltech’s Distinguished Alumni Award and the 2011 IEEE Award for Continuing and Significant Contributions in the Field of Applied Superconductivity from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Council on Superconductivity for significant and sustained contributions in the field of large-scale applications of superconductivity.

Well-known for nurturing students and young scientists, he also is the namesake of the Tollestrup Award for Postdoctoral Research, which the Universities Research Association Inc. has presented annually since 2003. The award recognizes outstanding work conducted by a postdoctoral researcher at Fermilab or in collaboration with Fermilab scientists.

“While the research community is well aware of Alvin’s scientific contributions, I think one of the greatest legacies he leaves is his devotion to nurturing young people in the field,” said Brookhaven National Laboratory scientist Mark Palmer, who worked with Tollestrup in the Muon Accelerator Program. “Numerous young researchers were beneficiaries of his patience and incisive approach to problem-solving as he mentored them.”

Photographed - The 1989 National Medal of Technology recipients, from left: Richard A. Lundy, J. Ritchie Orr, Helen T. Edwards, Alvin V. Tollestrup. (Photo credit: Janine Tollestrup)