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In Memoriam (Obituaries) Archive

Alan Lauder
Friday, February 17, 2023
Carl Leonard Goodzeit
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Klaus Irgmaier
Friday, June 28, 2013
George William Crabtree
Monday, January 23, 2023
Mauricio (Mau) de Lima Lopes
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
Joe Smith, Jr.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
K. Alex Müller
Monday, January 9, 2023
Lev Petrovich Gor'kov
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Sergey Egorov
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Donald “Bruce” Montgomery
Friday, July 1, 2022
Peter Komarek
Wednesday, November 23, 2016
Kiyoshi Tsukasa
Friday, January 25, 2013
Sir Martin Wood
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
Giovanni Volpini
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Henry Blosser
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Edward Neil Cliff Dalder
Monday, November 15, 2021
Leszek Motowidlo
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Gordon Donaldson
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Alexander Dmitrievich Kovalenko
Friday, April 30, 2021
Eric Gregory
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Michael Wulf
Friday, November 16, 2012
Robert “Bob” Buhrman
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Eddie Man-Wai Leung
Monday, August 1, 2016
Rob McGrath
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Ryazanov Alexander Ivanovich
Tuesday, March 23, 2021
Helen T. Edwards
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
Jens Müller
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Sergey Igorevich Kopylov
Friday, December 25, 2020
Konrad H. Fischer
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
Carl Henning
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
James Wong
Sunday, October 4, 2020
Karl Gschneidner
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
Akira Tonomura
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Rafael Navarro
Friday, September 25, 2020
Colmar Hinnrichs
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Siegfried Wolff
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
John "Jack" F. Mc Donald
Friday, February 21, 2020
William E. "Bill" Keller
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Milan Polák
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Alvin Tollestrup
Sunday, February 9, 2020
Robert John Soulen, Jr.
Sunday, November 29, 2015
Marty Lubell
Monday, January 16, 2012
Archie MacRobert Campbell
Thursday, November 21, 2019
Herbert Bousack
Friday, November 13, 2015
Antonio Barone
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Francesco Negrini
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Harry (Henry) Jones
Monday, August 24, 2015
Shoji Tanaka
Friday, November 11, 2011
John Robert Schrieffer
Saturday, July 27, 2019
William Brownfield Fowler
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Clyde Taylor
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Kamel Salama
Friday, July 12, 2019
Viktor Efimovich Keilin
Monday, November 24, 2014
Per Dahl
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Alan F. Clark
Friday, February 1, 2019
Koichi Kitazawa
Friday, September 26, 2014
Ernst-Helmut Brandt
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Hans-Georg Meyer
Tuesday, December 25, 2018
Werner Weber
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Igot Yanson
Monday, July 25, 2011
Kyoji Tachikawa
Friday, December 7, 2018
Hirosi Maeda
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Ray Sarwinski
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Roger W. Boom
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
James H. Parker, Jr.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Hisashi Kado
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
William “Bill” R. Shields
Friday, July 13, 2018
Olga L. Polushenko
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Gert Eilenberger
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Fernand D. “Doc” Bedard
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Hans Hillman
Thursday, February 6, 2014
W. James Carr Jr.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Vincenzo (Enzo) Palmieri
Friday, March 16, 2018
Nicola Sacchetti
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Michael Tinkham
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Meyer Garber
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Leo K. Kovalev
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Praveen Chaudhari
Thursday, January 14, 2010
James Nordman
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Alex Shikov
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Vitaly L. Ginzburg
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Henri Desportes
Sunday, September 24, 2017
Nikolai Kopnin
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Zdenek J. J. Stekly
Friday, April 3, 2009
John Alcorn
Thursday, September 7, 2017
Jeffrey A. Stern
Friday, October 11, 2013
Masaki Suenaga
Friday, February 13, 2009
Edgar A. Edelsack
Friday, May 5, 2017
Vladimir Pan
Friday, September 20, 2013
Hiromi Hirabayashi
Friday, April 11, 2008
Alexei Abrikosov
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Øystein Håkon Fischer
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Richard Stacy Withers
David G. Hawksworth
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
John Clem
Friday, August 2, 2013
Hisao Hayakawa
Peter E. Gifford
Sunday, January 29, 2017

Ray Sarwinski

January 11, 1936 to March 23, 2011
Ray Sarwinski (photo from 1990s)
Ray Sarwinski Passed Away in March 2011
 
August 8, 2012 (PO14).  Raymond Edmund (Ray) Sarwinski was born Jan 11, 1936. He was raised in Peru, Illinois, where he attended the St. Beade Academy (a Catholic high school), of which he was later a benefactor, and the LaSalle College. His academic education included a B.S. in Physics, an M.S. in Physics/Mathematics and Ph.D. in Engineering Physics, all from the University of Illinois. His Ph.D. dissertation was on a NMR method of spin-echo to measure diffusion coefficients. His advisor was John Wheatley who later moved to the University of California at San Diego and also founded S.H.E. Corporation, the first ever SQUID and ultra-low temperature cryogenics (dilution refrigerator) company.
 
Ray's first employer was the Ohio State University, where he was a Research Associate (1966-1967) and assistant Professor (1967-1972). During the summer of 1970, Wheatley asked Ray to become SHE's first president, but he declined, wanting to keep his faculty position. However, in 1972 he moved to San Diego, CA to join SHE as its Senior Physicist, becoming SHE's Manager of R&D. Ray's work with Georgio Frossati at the Centre de Recherches sur les Très Basses Températures in Grenoble, France led to the development of SHE's 400 and 500 series of dilution refrigerators that achieved temperatures as low as 2.9 mK.
 
In 1982, Ray became an independent consultant at an impressive number of institutions and companies, including Quantum Design, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, BioMagnetic Technologies, Aerojet General, Physical Dynamics, GWR Instruments, General Atomics, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, R. G. Hansen & Associates, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Hughes Aircraft, Maxwell Laboratories, CryoFab Australia, CeramPhysics, Applied Superconetics, Imotron, the University of California at San Francisco's Physics Research Laboratory, Ball Aerospace, Advanced CryoMagnetics, Tristan Technologies, Conductus, Toshiba America Magnetic Imaging, Cryogen, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Alpha Magnetics, International Cryogenics, Primex Physics, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Aerie Partners among others.  Ray founded his own company, the Cryogenic Designs, Inc., of San Diego, of which he was the President and CEO. One of its products was coil-foil which is used in many high performance non-magnetic liquid helium dewars for biomagnetic measurements.  It became also Ray’s consulting base.
 
During his career, Ray published over 30 refereed scientific publications in the field of low temperature physics and technology, including papers on low temperature properties of matter, superconductivity, NMR, dewars, SQUID instruments, sensors and cryogenic refrigeration. He was also granted 30 patents for his inventions related to the development of diverse devices such as the stabilized point contact toroidal rf SQUID, vapor-shielded metal and non-metal helium dewars, integration of cryocoolers and storage dewars to prolong hold time (including the first 1000 day hold-time liquid helium dewar), ELF SQUID receivers, towable horizontal dewars, ultra-low temperature dilution refrigerators and the variable temperature superconducting susceptometer. Ray's experience included also the development of custom designed cryogenic systems, scientific programming, level detectors, variable temperature ground based satellite coolers and cascade JT refrigerators. He was also involved in design of MRI magnets for both superconducting and permanent magnet coils, active and passive shielded magnet systems, magnet shim coil design and iron placement to produce homogenous fields.
 
Ray's honors included: 3M Teaching Fellow, Alfred E. Sloan Research Fellow, and Membership on the U.S. National Committee for the International Institute of Refrigeration.
 
Ray was a special person with many interests. The long list included photography, science fiction, astronomy, magic tricks, guns, board games, poker, orchids, esoteric plants, old cars (Lincoln continental, Mustang), dressing up for certain holidays (Halloween or Comic-Con), model planes and model helicopters, motorcycling, flying, collecting old and diverse things such as angel collections, coins, juke boxes, old autos, collection of buttons, and Star Wars. He loved swap meets and would share his special finds with other collectors. He had a certain "old codger reputation". He bought his last motorcycle about 1 year ago before passing away.
 
He had also an interest in computers, however, he continued arguing and fighting with them to make them do what he wanted to do regardless of computer limitations. Eventually, he would call for help. But as soon as he would go back to work on it, the same things would happen again.
 
Ray never had an unkind word to say about anyone. He loved his two sons and his friends. He would do anything to help them and assisted in solving their problems in his own special style. His last months were difficult due to a plethora of health problems. He was prepared for his departure and settled in advance all details of it, including funeral and celebration instructions.  Ray passed away on March 23, 2011.  His ashes were dispersed on the Pacific Ocean from a cryogenic dewar.
 
(The remembrance above is based on information, documents and photos supplied by Mrs. Marilyn Hauck.  Additional input and/or revisions were provided by: William Black, Robert Fagaly, Eugene Hirschkoff, Douglas Paulson and Ronald Sager.)

 

Hisashi Kado

February 7, 1948 to December 22, 2010
Hisashi Kado (ca 2007)
Hisashi Kado Succumbed to Cancer
December 27, 2010 (PO1).  Hisashi Kado, a pioneer of modern biomagnetic SQUID instrumentation in Japan passed away on December 22nd, 2010, after a three-year-long battle with cancer. He left behind his wife and three sons.
 
Hisahi was born on February 7th, 1948 and graduated from the Department of Biophysical Engineering, faculty of Engineering Science at the Osaka University in 1971.  His PhD degree he also obtained from Osaka University, in 1984.
 
In 1971 Hisashi joined the Electrotechnical Laboratory (ETL) and started his research activity by getting involved in measurements of human hearing system and developing non-invasive methods of functional measurement of biological system.  From mid-1980s on, he was developing SQUID and biomagnetic measurement systems at ETL, and eventually joined the Superconducting Sensor Laboratory (SSL), a MITI1 consortium-type project (1990-1996) to develop large, multichannel magnetoencephalography (MEG) systems for human brain research and diagnostics.  Hisashi was appointed the Research Director of SSL, a position equivalent to Chief Technical Officer in a company.  His SSL activity culminated in the development, commissioning and research use of a 256-channel whole-head MEG system (complete with a special magnetic shielded room) then the largest in the world.
 
In 1995 Hisashi was appointed Professor at the Kanazawa Institute of Technology (KIT), and organized there the Applied Electronics Laboratory of KIT, which he then headed.  The objective of this group has been to develop various measurement technologies for biomagnetism, applied physics and other industrial applications.  Hisashi’s and the group’s major success was the completion and industrialization of a 160-channel whole-head MEG system2 for medical research and diagnostics, which found use internationally, both in the US and in Europe.
 
For his achievements Hisashi received the New Technology Development Award of the “Japan Society of Medical and Biological Engineering, Science News”.
 
As his close collaborator, Gen Uehara, put it, “at SSL and KIT, Hisashi lead many young common researchers to achieve uncommon results, and eventually educated them to be next generation leaders in biomagnetism.”  His premature departure leaves a deep void which will be difficult to fill.

1MITI is the acronym of the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry.

2Spun-off to the Eagle Technology Corporation, Inc., and to the Yokogawa Electric Corp.

 

Gert Eilenberger

January 1, 1936 to November 21, 2010
Gert Eilenberger (ca. 1980)
Gert Eilenberger Passed away at 74
 January 14, 2011 (PO2).  German theoretical physicist, Prof. Gert Eilenberger, passed away on November 21st, 2010, after a severe short illness.  His rather sudden departure at 74 came as a sad surprise to his colleagues.  He has been well-known to the superconductivity community as the originator of Eilenberger equations, which are applicable to BCS-like superconductors.  These equations are a simplification of Gor’kov equations and are useful especially for superconducting alloys (1968).
 
Gert Eilenberger was born in 1936 in Hamburg, got his Ph.D. in 1961 under the well-known Friedrich Hund, and the habilitation (D.Sc.) in 1965, both at Göttingen.  Soon after a postdoctoral stint at Cornell (1965-1967) he became affiliated with the Cologne University and was appointed full professor in 1970. 
 
Eilenberger made significant contributions both to superconductivity, and to nonlinear dynamics.  For over 30 years he was active in the Research Center Jülich (KFA later FZJ, Jülich, Germany) and founded there the present “Institute of Quantum Theory of Materials”.  His activity included not only purely scientific work, but also various leading roles in the FZJ Senate, an advisory role at the DFG, the German equivalent of NSF (the US National Science Foundation), was Chairman of the Board of Europhysics Letters, member of the Academy of Sciences of NRW (Northrhine-Westphalia), etc.  As a DFG advisor he was particularly helpful in supporting effective reorganization of science in Dresden, East Germany, after the German reunification.   Once officially retired from FZJ, he became also quite active and successful in the communal politics of the City of Jülich.
 
Gert was a very engaged and passionate colleague with a strong instinct for what is right and beneficial to the community.  His colleagues and collaborators appreciated his deep and broad knowledge as well as his warm heart and sense of humor.   For this Editor it was a special privilege to know him and be able to interact with, also in matters of FZJ science policy of 1990s.

Alex I. Braginski

 

W. James Carr Jr.

May 6, 1918 to November 16, 2010
Jim Carr (ca 1980)
W. James Carr Jr. Passed Away at 92
November 23, 2010 (HE52).  On November 16th, 2010, Walter James (“Jim”) Carr, Jr., author of the first useful monograph on ac losses in supercondicting composite conductors1 and of many important contributions to the field of magnetism and applied superconductivity, passed away at 92 at home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
 
Jim was born on May 6, 1918 in Knob Noster, Missouri.  He initially intended to be a journalist, but instead enrolled at the Missouri School of Mines in Rolla (now University of Missouri at Rolla), because of a full-tuition scholarship; in 1940 he graduated there with a BS in engineering.  He then entered Stanford University, CA, studied with Frederic Terman and graduated with MSEE in 1942.   Upon graduation he was recruited by the Westinghouse Research Laboratories (later R&D Center) in Pittsburgh to join the wartime effort and was involved in defense projects.  After the war, Westinghouse sponsored his graduate studies at Carnegie Tech (Now Carnegie-Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, PA.  He wanted to study physics to know the "why" behind the engineering.  When told he was too valuable to lose from the lab while getting a PhD, he went over his boss's head and was approved for graduate study with the endorsement that this was exactly the reason why he should have been approved and supported.  He graduated with a PhD in physics in 1951 under Frederick Seitz.
 
Jim spent all his active career of 43 years at Westinghouse and attained the highest non managerial rank of Consulting Scientist, a rare distinction in that organization.  In 1987 Jim was elevated to the grade of IEEE Fellow for his contributions to theories of magnetism, and for development of the theory of alternating current losses in composite superconductors.  He also became Fellow of the American Physical Society.  A seminar at the Department of Physics, University of Maryland, features annually a W. James Carr, Jr. memorial lecture.
 
This Editor first read an important paper on magnetic anisotropy authored by Jim back in 1950s; it strongly influenced my own work at the very beginning of my professional career.  I was thus truly awed when meeting him in person and having the privilege of working on his side some twenty plus years later.  Those of us who knew Jim well admired equally his sharp mind, impeccably logical reasoning and his most courteous gentle manners.  He was a true gentleman.  Even after his retirement he remained quite active professionally; his last paper was published only 3 years ago.  Until very recently he could be often encountered at various professional conferences.  His departure is a big loss; we’ll miss him…

Alex I. Braginski

1W. J. Carr, Jr. AC-loss and Macroscopic Theory of Superconductors, Gordon and Breach, 1983 (second edition in 2001).

Michael Tinkham

February 3, 1928 to November 4, 2010
Michael Tinkham (ca 1998)
Michael Tinkham Passes Away at 82
Broad thinker advanced both the theoretical and
experimental understanding of superconductivity
November 23, 2010 (HE51).  Below we reproduce the integral text of the Harvard University obituary included in their press release of November 5, 2010.
 
Michael "Mike" Tinkham, whose latest appointment was as the Rumford Research Professor of Physics and Gordon McKay Research Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Department of Physics, passed away on November 4, 2010. He was 82 years old.
 
Born on February 23, 1928 in Green Lake County, Wisconsin, Tinkham earned his undergraduate degree at Ripon College in 1951 and his Master's and Ph.D. degrees, both in physics, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in 1951 and 1954 respectively. He also spent a year at the Clarendon Laboratory of Oxford as a postdoctoral fellow. 
 
He joined the University of California, Berkeley in 1957, rising to full professor, and then left in 1966 for Harvard, where he remained for the rest of his career. Tinkham's research focused primarily on superconductivity, as captured in his classic text, Introduction to Superconductivity.
In his later years he was active in studying the unique properties of materials when sample dimensions are reduced to the nanometer range.
 
In the Journal of Superconductivity, Tinkham's former student Christopher Lobb '80 (Ph.D., Applied Physics), wrote:
"The opportunity to work with Mike ... was one of the greatest experiences of my life. As a researcher, Mike's rare combination of experimental and theoretical ability has kept him at the top of the field for decades.
As a teacher, Mike worked constantly to make things understandable, and did so with enthusiasm and wit. Any success I've had since leaving his group has largely been due to what I learned from him ..."
Tinkham's awards and honors included election to the National Academy of Sciences; the receipt of the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize; and the Fred E. Saalfeld Award for Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Science in 2005.
 

Praveen Chaudhari

August 1, 1950 to January 14, 2010
Praveen Chaudhari – Short Obituary
January 15, 2010 (HE38).  Praveen Chaudhari, the prominent science manager and scientist, long time the IBM Vice-President of Science and lately Director of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, prematurely passed away in the night of 13/14 January 2010.  During his long tenure at IBM, he contributed in a major way to superconductivity.
 
Of his many direct contributions, the seminal and most prominent one is the systematic investigation of critical current dependence upon the grain boundary angle in rare earth cuprates (YBCO). This resulted in thus far the most reliable and broadly used technology of high-Tc Josephson junctions used in SQUIDs, HTS voltage standards, etc. Furthermore, the bicrystal work provided foundation for the experimental confirmation and investigations of d-wave pairing in cuprates.
 
It also led to the development of the HTS coated conductor technology. Also at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), he supported superconducting materials research and participated in it.  The summary of his recent results and thoughts on the grain boundaries in cuprates is given in his plenary EUCAS 2009 talk pre-published in our Issue 11 (to appear in Superconductor Science and Technology 2010).  For his achievements, Chaudhari has been honored with a number of awards.  He was an APS Fellow and member of the US National Academy of Engineering.  We reproduce his photo dating a few years back.

Vitaly L. Ginzburg

January 1, 1916 to November 8, 2009
Vitaly L. Ginzburg. (© The Nobel Foundation, 2003)
Vitaly L. Ginzburg – Brief Obituary
November 10, 2009 (HE36).  Vitaly L. Ginzburg, 93, the co-author of the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) phenomenological theory of superconductivity preceding the microscopic BCS theory, died on November 8, 2009, apparently due to cardiac arrest.
 
Ginzburg, born on October 4th, 1916, in Moscow, Russia, graduated with Ph.D. in 1940 and D. Sc. in 1942. At that time he worked at the Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow. He made also significant contribution to astrophysics and to nuclear fusion, specifically the Soviet H- bomb. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2003, essentially for the GL theory. Readers interested in Ginzburg’s personal story and his views should refer to his brief autobiography, and an interview he most recently gave the Physics World (IOP). We reproduce his relatively recent photo (2003).
 

Zdenek J. J. Stekly

October 11, 1933 to April 3, 2009
Zdenek J. J. Stekly, Sc.D
Zdenek J. J. Stekly, Sc.D October 11, 1933-April 3, 2009
 
WAYLAND: Dr. Zdenek J. J. “John” Stekly, 75, succumbed on April 3, 2009 after a long battle with coronary heart disease.
He was born on October 11, 1933 in Prague, Czechoslovakia, the son of the late Karel A. Stekly and Jindriska (Wolfstahl) Stekly.
 
Dr. Stekly was the beloved husband of Suzanne Gibbs Stekly of Wayland. He was the loving father of Susan Stekly Williams and her husband Stephen W. Williams of Framingham, Paul F. Stekly and his wife Ashby Free of Cave Creek, AZ and of the late J. Steven Stekly. He leaves 5 grandchildren, a niece and 2 nephews.
 
After escaping Nazi occupied Czechoslavia, Dr. Stekly relocated temporarily to England before moving to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil where he spent the majority of his youth. Accepted into MIT at the age of sixteen, Dr Stekly completed his studies, the first in his class, receiving a BS in Mechanical Engineering, and a Masters in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering in 1955. In 1959 he received his Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering.
 
After working for AVCO Everett Research Lab, Dr. Stekly worked as chairman of Magnetic Corporation of America, specializing in the production of superconducting magnets for use in MRI Scanners, Maglev research, Dept of Defense and the Dept of Energy.
 
A pioneer in superconductivity applications, Dr Stekly developed the ‘Stekly Stability Criterion’ which defines the maximum efficient operating capacity of superconducting wire.
 
Inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 1981, Dr. Stekly was also a member of the American Physical Society and the New England Council. He was elected to the Board of Directors of the FSH Society, Inc (Muscular Dystrophy). He belonged to the Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity.
 
At the request of the family, there will be no services at this time. Private services will be held for the family at a later date. For those who desire, gifts in his memory may be sent to the FSH Society Inc., 64 Grove St, Watertown, MA 02472. (IEEE CSC)

 

Masaki Suenaga

January 1, 1938 to February 13, 2009
Masaki Suenaga
Masaki Suenaga - Feb. 13, 2009
Masaki Suenaga of Bellport, a retired award-winning scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory and an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University, died Feb. 13 at age 71.
 
Dr. Suenaga received the the IEEE COUNCIL ON SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AWARDS FOR CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE FIELD OF APPLIED SUPERCONDUCTIVITYduring the 2008 Applied Superconductivity Conference,, which was held last September in Chicago, IL. After receiving his Award, Dr. Suenaga said, "I feel fortunate that I've been able to do work that I like and that my research has resulted in useful technologies."
 
Suenaga's study of the superconductor niobium-tin helped to lay the groundwork for the first high-temperature superconductor power transmission cable system. That system, installed last year by the Long Island Power Authority in Holbrook, allows for the use of far less cable to conduct many times more power than more traditional systems.

Born in Shimonoseki, Japan, Suenaga moved to the United States after high school, and attended the University of California at Berkeley. There, he earned a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering in 1962, a master's degree in engineering in 1964, and a doctorate in metallurgy in 1969.

Yoko Suenaga, his wife, said her husband loved reading, studying and researching everything. "For instance," she said, "before we'd go to Italy or Spain, he'd borrow books and study their history and culture ... He was devoted to research, a never-ending job ... his whole life."

Suenaga was diagnosed with leukemia about two years ago, and retired from Brookhaven Lab about that time, his wife said, but he maintained office space at the lab, and continued to work three days a week as a guest scientist.

He first joined Brookhaven Lab in 1969 as an assistant metallurgist, moving up through higher positions over the years until he became senior metallurgist in 1983. He was an adjunct professor of material sciences at Stony Brook, and was honored in November by the lab with the title of Senior Scientist Emeritus.

Diane Greenberg, a lab spokeswoman said in a statement after his death, "The title is given to BNL retired scientists ... who have made particularly noteworthy contributions to the Laboratory's reputation as a world-class scientific institution."

In addition to his wife, of Bellport, he is survived by his mother, Aiko Suenaga of Shimonoseki; two sons, Ken of Yokohoma, Japan, and Ben of Manhattan; and two grandsons.

Suenaga was to be buried in Japan this week.

A memorial service is tentatively planned for next month on Long Island. (IEEE CSC)

Source: Newsday, 21 February 2009

 

Hiromi Hirabayashi

January 1, 1934 to April 11, 2008
Hiromi Hirabayashi
 
Hiromi Hirabayashi, a leading figure and professor emeritus of KEK, passed away on 11 April 2008. He was an internationally renowned pioneer in the field of applied superconductivity and cryogenics for high-energy physics.
 
Hirabayashi was born in Gifu Prefecture, renowned for the Shirakawa-go world heritage site. He was educated in nuclear engineering at the graduate school of Tokyo Institute of Technology, where he gained his PhD in 1966, before becoming a research associate at the Institute of Nuclear Study at the University of Tokyo. He worked on preparations for the National Laboratory for High Energy Physics, or KEK, now the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization, in particular in developing a hydrogen bubble chamber, essential for high-energy physics experiments in Japan. At the same time he established cryogenics – the necessary basic engineering – as a new academic discipline in Japan, and contributed to the development of applied superconductivity and cryogenics in collaboration with Japanese industry. (Read complete obituary.) (IEEE CSC)
 
 

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