Tag: Obituary

Nadine Gail Barlow passed away on August 17, 2020. Over 18 years at Northern Arizona University, Nadine ascended the academic ranks, becoming Department Chair of Astronomy and Planetary Science. She received numerous awards for teaching excellence. Doubling the size of the Department, she grew its curriculum into a Ph.D.-granting program. Nadine supervised many undergraduate and graduate students, and was a popular mentor and friend to those under her tutelage. A prize for Undergraduate Research Excellence is being established in her name. Academic outreach was a priority, bringing the Arizona Space Grant Program to NAU, and fostering cooperation between NAU, Lowell Observatory, and the USGS. Nadine specialized in impact cratering processes across the Solar System. Almost on a dare, she mapped, measured, and classified every crater on Mars larger than 8 km in diameter for her Ph.D. dissertation. These data were used to establish the detailed relative chronology of Martian geologic features. Throughout her career, she expanded this database, as later spacecraft missions returned increasingly detailed images of Mars. The IAU named asteroid 15466 Barlow in her honor.

Nadine is missed by family and many lifelong friends.

Bob Marcialis, Faith Vilas, Lisa Prato, Lynn Hayden

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our colleague Michael I. Mishchenko.  Dr. Michael Mishchenko was a graduate of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and received his PhD (with honors) and Habilitation Doctoral degrees in physics from the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (NASU). He worked at the Main Astronomical Observatory in Kiev (1987-1992) and then joined the research staff of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Michael’s research interests included electromagnetic scattering by morphologically complex particles and particle groups, polarimetry, aerosol and cloud remote sensing, and ocean optics.

One of Michael’s principal accomplishments was his development of efficient T-matrix methods to enable numerically exact computer calculations of scattering and absorption by complex dispersions of randomly and preferentially oriented atmospheric particulates. T-matrix techniques are based on direct solutions of the Maxwell equations. The resulting computer programs work for morphologically complex particles with large size parameters, with benchmark accuracy over their range of applicability. Michael’s T-matrix computer programs have been publicly available on-line since 1997, and have been used in more than 1450 peer-reviewed publications. Michael himself used T-matrix methods in pioneering studies of the effects of morphological particle complexities on the radiative, polarization, and depolarization properties of mineral aerosols, fractal-soot and soot-containing aerosols, soot-contaminated cloud droplets, contrail particles, and polar stratospheric and noctilucent clouds.

Beyond scattering by single particles Michael derived the general theory of radiative transfer in particulate media directly from the Maxwell equations, an accomplishment that had eluded scientists for over a century. This microphysical derivation established the existence of a fundamental link between electromagnetics, radiative transfer, and coherent backscattering, defined the formal conditions of applicability of the radiative transfer equation, and clarified the physical nature of measurements taken with directional radiometers. It also identified and dispelled misconceptions inherent in conventional phenomenological radiometry and radiative transfer theory. As a result of Michael’s work, the disciplines of radiative transfer and directional radiometry are now legitimate branches of physical optics.

While Michael was a consummate theoretician he also managed the NASA/GEWEX Global Aerosol Climatology Project developing an innovative algorithm to infer aerosol properties from multi-channel ISCCP radiance data and compiling the first global satellite climatology of aerosol optical thickness and size for the full period of satellite observations.  Building on this work Michael’s seminal sensitivity analysis of passive algorithms for the retrieval of aerosol properties from space using radiance and polarization data was instrumental in the development of the NASA Glory Space Mission for which Michael served as Project Scientist.

Dr. Mishchenko published 7 monographs, 23 peer-reviewed book chapters, and some 300 journal papers. He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Quantitative Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer and of Physics Open. He previously served as Topical Editor on scattering and meteorological optics for Applied Optics and was an editorial board member for several other scholarly journals.

An elected Fellow of AGU, OSA, AMS, IoP (UK), and the Electromagnetics Academy, Dr. Mishchenko was the recipient of numerous professional awards including the AMS Henry G. Houghton Award, Hendrik C. van de Hulst Award from Elsevier, and two NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medals. The International Astronomical Union honored Michael by giving Asteroid 22686 (1998 QL53) the name “Mishchenko”.Michael passed away on July 21, 2020.  His loss and his legacy are enormous.

Andy Lacis, Larry Travis, Barbara Carlson, and Brian Cairns

NASA GISS, 2880 Broadway, New York, NY 10025

The British-American astronomer Margaret Burbidge passed away on 5 April 2020 at the age of 100. She was the principal author of a watershed scientific paper in 1957 that set out the evidence for chemical elements having been formed inside stars. The 100-page paper was titled “Synthesis of the Elements in Stars” and was published in Reviews of Modern Physics. Burbidge was the first author, together with her collaborators, her husband, Geoffrey Burbidge, William A. Fowler and Fred Hoyle; the paper became known as B2FH, from the first letters of its authors’ surnames.

Born in Stockport, Greater Manchester, she studied astronomy, physics and mathematics at University College London and graduated with first class honors in 1939 just as WWII was looming. She worked at the University of London’s Mill Hill observatory, where her  observing logs indicated that she sometimes had to realign the telescope because of nearby  explosions from German V1 flying bombs.

She earned a PhD from University College London in 1943, and as WWII was ending, she applied for a postdoctoral fellowship at the Mount Wilson observatory in Los Angeles.  Drawn by the sheer size of the telescopes being built in the US, she was turned down because she was a woman and would have had to spend nights at the observatory with married men. Writing in 1994, she recalled that this rejection opened her eyes to gender- based discrimination, “A guiding operational principle in my life was activated: If frustrated in one’s endeavor by a stone wall or any kind of blockage, one must find a way around it — another route towards one’s goal. This is advice I have given to many women facing similar situations.”

Remaining in Britain, she met Geoffrey Burbidge, a theoretical physicist at UCL, in late 1947, and six months later they were married. Her enthusiasm for the universe persuaded him to turn his talents to astrophysics too. She finally made it to the US in 1951 with a position at the University of Chicago’s Yerkes observatory in Wisconsin. Although she would occasionally return to the UK over the coming decades, she made the US her home and became a US citizen in 1977.

In 1962 the Burbidges became professors at the UC San Diego, and a decade later she returned to the UK to become director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory. Until then the post had carried with it the title of Astronomer Royal. However, she was not conferred this honor, breaking more than 300 years of tradition, something she would sometimes put down to politics and sometimes to sexism.

In the same year she took a stand against the AAS by refusing to accept its Annie Jump Cannon award, given for distinguished contributions to astronomy by women. Her reason was that it was only awarded to female astronomers, and in her letter to the committee she explained that “it is high time that discrimination in favor of, as well as against, women in  professional life be removed”.

In response, the AAS convened a working group to investigate the status of women in astronomy. In 1974 she returned to the US, and two years later was elected the first female  president of the AAS. In the subsequent decades she worked across many areas of astrophysics, and helped to develop the Faint Object Spectrograph, one of the original  instruments on HST.

She retired in 1988, and subsequently became professor emeritus. In 2005 she and her husband were jointly awarded the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. Geoffrey died in 2010. Margaret is survived by their daughter, Sarah, and a grandson, Conner.

Adapted from the full obituary at:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/apr/22/margaret-burbidge obituary?CMP=share_btn_link

Photo credit: UC San Diego Library

Emeritus Professor William A. Cassidy of the Department of Geology and Environmental Science (formerly the Geology and Planetary Science Department) at the University of Pittsburgh passed away of a heart attack on March 22, 2020. Bill is best known for creating the ANSMET (Antarctic Search for Meteorites) program in 1976, serving as its PI for nearly 20 years. The ANSMET program has recovered more than 22,000 samples its start, and Bill’s efforts helped to triple the world’s inventory of meteorites.

Because of those efforts, the Cassidy Glacier in Antarctica was named for him, as well as the mineral Cassidyite, and the asteroid 3382 Cassidy. In 1979, he was awarded the Antarctica Service Medal. His efforts in Antarctica were documented in his memoir, “Meteorites, Ice, and Antarctica: A Personal Account” published by Cambridge University Press in 2003.

Bill had a marvelous sense of humor that rivaled his sense of adventure, which took him to impact craters in Canada, South America, Africa, and Australia. He will be missed by his colleagues and friends.

More information can be found here:
https://www.geology.pitt.edu/news/emeritus-faculty-member-dr-william-cassidy

Adam Showman, a Professor of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, passed away suddenly on March 16, 2020.  Prof. Showman had a wide range of interests and expertise. Most notably he was an expert in both the atmospheres and interiors of planets. His atmospheric work concentrated on giant gaseous planets like Jupiter, Saturn and many of the extrasolar planets that have been discovered, while most of his work on interiors dealt with the icy satellites that orbit the Solar System’s giant planets.

Prof. Showman was born in 1968, and received his B.S. in Physics from Stanford in 1991 and his Ph.D. in Planetary Sciences for the California Institute of Technology in 1999, then joined LPL in 2001. He published a total of more than 150 scientific papers.

Prof. Showman served as the advisor for eight University of Arizona students who received their Ph.D.s, and as the mentor for six post-doctoral fellows. He was named a Galileo Circle Fellow by the University of Arizona College of Science in 2018, and was named a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2019.

There will be a Zoom memorial service for Adam Showman on Saturday, April 4, at 1 p.m. MST (4 p.m. EDT, 20:00 UTC)

Registration is at https://arizona.zoom.us/meeting/register/upUtdu2srTIoB8sXjXM3skbpetWp6bni0A, or can be accessed through a link on the memorial page for Prof. Showman, at  https://www.lpl.arizona.edu/showman

David Criswell, a noted space physicist with many science publications and worldwide patents, as well as a former member of the science staff at the Lunar Science/Lunar and Planetary Institute, passed away on September 10. He was 78 years old.

Criswell received his Ph.D. in 1968 from Rice University in the Department of Space Physics and Astronomy. His graduate research at Rice University included experimental work on auroral photometry and particle detection using rockets and satellites. He joined the technical staff of TRW Inc.-Houston Operations in 1968 and pursued a wide range of projects in support to the Apollo program.

In 1970 Criswell came to the newly created Lunar Science Institute in Houston as a visiting scientist, becoming a senior staff scientist by the time the Institute was renamed as the Lunar and Planetary Institute.

Criswell conducted research on Moon-solar wind interactions, dynamics of the soil regolith, lunar surface seismology, and related topics. He directed the only post-Apollo study funded by NASA during the 1970s on the conversion of lunar resources into basic industrial materials. He directed a number of LPI functions such as local and international scientific conferences and study groups, edited major proceedings and special journal issues, and operated the Lunar and Planetary Review Panel, which reviewed more than 3000 research proposals submitted to NASA in the 1970s.

Criswell began writing articles and papers on the use of extraterrestrial materials for commercial usage and space settlements in 1979. His article in The Industrial Physicist, “Solar Power via the Moon” (April/May 2002), was the continuation of many years of dedicated service to the development of space resources for developing Third World Countries, seeking to develop a source of safe, efficient, and cost-effective energy for future generations of Earth’s inhabitants.

In 1980, Criswell accepted a research position with the newly formed California Space Institute (CalSpace) headquartered at the University of California, San Diego. He participated in formulation of local and statewide Cal Space research programs and acquired NASA and private funds for the development of systems to process lunar materials, directing high-level program reviews for NASA and the congressional Office of Technology Assessment.

From 1982 to 1990 Criswell served as an aerospace consultant, working with industry, government, and academic clients. He also organized and participated in reviews of advanced research programs at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at Los Alamos National Laboratory and provided similar assistance to the Illinois Space Institute. He directed the CalSpace Automation and Robotics Panel, which conducted an independent evaluation of the use of advanced automation and robotics within the NASA space station program. Criswell was also the primary developer and Director of the Consortium for Space/Terrestrial Automation and Robotics of the Universities Space Research Association. Criswell organized and wrote the proposal under which the University of California won the National Space Grant College and Fellowship program in California in 1989 and operated the program for the first year before returning to Texas in 1990.

While successful in a number of professional research areas, Criswell was most passionate about and most noted for his work on a potential lunar solar power system, which was designed to build bases on the Moon in order to beam clean, renewable energy from the Sun to Earth. People often said he was a man ahead of his time. In his personal life, he was a devoted, funny, sweet husband, father, grandfather, brother, and friend. In every sense, the world will be much the poorer without him.

Criswell is survived by his loving wife of 39 years and many beloved children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and other family members.

For those who might be in the Houston area, a celebration of David Criswell’s life will be held on Monday, October 14, at 2:00 p.m. (reception to follow) at Bay Area Unitarian Universalist Church, 17503 El Camino Real, Houston TX 77058. Amusing and memorable stories to share about him are welcome.

It is with great sadness that we report the death of our colleague, Dr. Jay T. Bergstralh on February 16, 2019, at age 75 after a long battle with progressive aphasia and dementia.  Jay graduated from Carleton College in 1965 with a degree in Astronomy and the University of Texas in 1972 with Masters and Doctoral degrees in Astronomy.  He also gained experience at the US Naval Observatory and Aeronutronic Systems, Inc. during this period.   Jay subsequently accepted a National Research Council postdoctoral position at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he remained as an employee until 1988, when he was detailed to NASA Headquarters.  He became a career Civil Servant in 1992, working at NASA Headquarters until 2004 when he moved to NASA’s Langley Research Center, where he served as Chief Scientist until his retirement in 2012. At the University of Texas, he was the first graduate of the Astronomy Department to do thesis work in the field of planetary sciences.  At JPL he conducted original research on the atmospheres of Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus and on Jupiter’s satellite, Io, primarily from ground-based astronomy; he also worked on the Voyager mission Photopolarimeter System team. He took on the role of Science Organizing Chair for the first American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences meeting in Pasadena, California, in 1978.   While at JPL he also became the first Chair of the DPS from a NASA field center in 1986-1987.  Following the Voyager flyby, he organized a conference on the Uranus system and was the lead editor of the comprehensive book Uranus, published in 1991 by the University of Arizona Press.  During  his tenure at NASA Headquarters, Jay managed the Planetary Atmospheres research grants program, became the Associate Director for Solar System  Exploration and Program Scientist for the Galileo, Cassini, Europa Orbiter and Messenger missions, and for the Discovery Program.  At Langley, his work included the development of spacecraft instrumentation concepts.

Besides his scientific curiosity and public service at NASA, he was a quintessential gentleman and a man of diverse interests, including history and traditional woodworking. We will miss his quiet sense of humor, including memorable renditions of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Modern Major General”.  He is survived by Jane, his wife of 52 years, their three children Carol,  Daniel, and David, and by five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Further insight into Jay’s life is accessible from an AIP oral history he provided in 1983, available at:  https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/2819.

He also provided some public insight into the Voyager mission in a PBS interview with Gwen Ifil on the 20th anniversary of Voyager’s launch: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/fantastic-voyage.

Glenn Orton and Kevin Baines

William (Bill) R. Ward passed away on September 20th at his home in Prescott, Az after a battle with brain cancer.  Ward was a preeminent theoretician that made many seminal contributions to our understanding of planetary dynamics and solar system formation.  With his thesis advisor, Peter Goldreich, Ward proposed that planetesimals were formed via local gravitational instability in the protostellar disk.  In 1973, Ward was the first to recognize that the obliquity of Mars undergoes large oscillations, and with Alastair Cameron in 1976, he was one of the original proposers of the giant impact theory for the origin of the Moon.  Ward was a pioneer in the study of gravitational interactions between planets and their precursor gas disk, and how these may cause large scale changes in planetary orbits.  His many papers on this topic elucidated the nature of Type I vs. Type II migration, central to our understanding of planet formation in our Solar System and in exoplanetary systems. Ward also contributed greatly to our understanding of satellite formation and dynamical evolution.  After completing his PhD at Caltech, Ward worked as a post-doc at CFA, before moving  to JPL.  He joined SwRI in Boulder, Co., in 1998, and retired from SwRI as an Institute Scientist in 2014.  Ward is survived by his wife Sandra, brother Jeff,sister Patty, sons Brad and Scott, and daughter Stephanie.

Robin Canup

Southwest Research Institute