In Memoriam
Ian Affleck (1952-2024)
Ian grew up in Vancouver, studied at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario for his undergraduate degree and Harvard University for his doctoral degree. Ian joined the department in 1987 after teaching at Princeton University. Ian's main research interests were in theoretical condensed matter physics, in particular its interface with elementary particle theory. Read More...
Roger Howard (1935-2024)
The Department of Physics and Astronomy (PHAS) fondly remembers Roger Howard, a distinguished theoretical physicist and an early faculty member whose contributions were integral to the department's development. Roger was born in England in 1935 in Robin Hood’s Nottingham region. He joined the UBC Physics Department in 1959 as a condensed matter theorist. Roger's research interests evolved, leading him to the realm of subatomic physics. Read More...
Harvey B. Richer ( -2023)
Harvey was born in Montreal, Canada to parents Samuel Richer and Lillian Richer. He completed his PhD at the University of Rochester and soon after joined the Geophysics & Astronomy Department at UBC in 1970. In 1996, Astronomy joined together with Physics to form what is now the UBC Department of Physics & Astronomy. Harvey was a leader in the field of stellar astronomy, garnering numerous awards and research time to explore galaxy formation and the evolution of stellar systems on the twin Gemini Telescopes, the Canada France Hawaii Telescope, the Hubble space Telescope (HST) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Read More...
Irving Ozier (1938-2022)
Irving was born in September, 1938 in Montreal, Quebec to parents Harry and Peppi (Schwartzwald) Ozier. He completed his Bachelor degree from the University of Toronto, followed by a PhD from Harvard University under Professor Norman Ramsey (Nobel Laureate in Physics, 1989) in 1966. He started his career with research fellowships at Harvard and MIT, followed by a research position at the Rockwell International Science Centre in Thousand Oaks, California. In 1970, he was hired as Associate Professor at the Department of Physics & Astronomy at UBC (1970-77), receiving full Professorship at PHAS in 1977. Read More...
Bruce White (1931-2022)
Bruce was born in New Zealand in 1931. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Victoria University, Wellington in 1951, and later completed his PhD at the Imperial College of Science and Technology at London. In 1956, Bruce was recruited by the then Department Head Gordon Shrum to UBC Department of Physics & Astronomy. Bruce played a significant role in the building of TRIUMF, Canada's particle accelerator centre. When TRIUMF was first approved, Bruce, along with several other faculty members in the department, took the responsibility for various parts of the TRIUMF cyclotron during the first few years. Read More...
Johannes ("Hannes") Barnard (1929-2022)
Hannes was born in 1929 in Walvis Bay in Namibia, Africa. He completed his undergraduate and master's degree at the Rhodes University, South Africa, and received his PhD degree with a research focus on spectroscopy from the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Hannes joined the department in 1959, recruited by the then Department Head Gordon Shrum, to be the first member of the Plasma Physics group during a rapid expansion of the department. Read More...
John Edgar Eldridge (1942-2021)
John was born on March 29th, 1942 in Oxford, United Kingdom. He completed his undergraduate degree in 1963, and his graduate degree (PhD) in 1966, both at the University of Birmingham. He continued as a Research Associate at the University of Nebraska in 1966, and joined UBC Physics & Astronomy in 1968 as a faculty member. John was awarded the Best Condensed Matter Paper in the Canadian Journal of Physics in 1981, and appointed as a UBC Killam Senior Fellow in 1986. Read More...
Jochen Meyer (1938-2021)
Jochen was born and raised in northern Germany by the Baltic Sea. He attended the University of Kiel graduating with a PhD in physics in 1964. Soon after he married Annegret. Together they journeyed by boat to Australia where Jochen started a three-year position as a research fellow at the University of New England in Armidale, NSW. In the Spring of 1968, he started his long-held tenure with the UBC Physics Department. Here he joined the Plasma Group working on plasma spectroscopy projects, ultrafast Plasma dynamics, and sub-picosecond laser pulses. Read more...
David Llewelyn Williams (1937 - 2021)
David Llewelyn was born in 1937 in the seaside resort of Prestatyn, Wales. His family instilled in him values of learning, education and service; combined with a natural curiosity, he went on to an undergraduate degree from Bangor University, Wales, and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, England. David Llewelyn came to Canada in 1960 as a National Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia where he worked for 42 years until his retirement. Read more...
Anna Celler (1951 - 2020)
Born and raised in Poland, Dr. Celler received her M.Sc. in 1974 and her Ph.D. in 1980 from the university of Warsaw where she became an expert in nuclear physics. After spending some time in research laboratories in Poland, France, and Finland, she moved to Canada with her husband and joined the Charge Exchange Group at TRIUMF in 1984. In 1991, Anna joined the nuclear medicine department at the Vancouver General Hospital as a clinical medical imaging physicist. Soon, she was overseeing the quality assurance program of 12 nuclear medicine departments around the Lower Mainland. Read more...
Luis Sobrino (1929 - 2019)
Luis Gonzaga de Sobrino y Sierra was born in Cadiz, Spain in 1929. While serving in the Spanish navy during the Franco regime, Luis took an unauthorized leave in 1957 to pursue an MSc and PhD in Nuclear Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Upon completing his Doctorate in 1960, he accepted a teaching position in the Physics Department at the University of British Columbia, became a full professor in 1968, and remained at UBC until his retirement in 1995. Read more...
David Axen (1938 - 2019)
David joined UBC in 1968 and was one of the key figures in the founding of TRIUMF, for which he served as Associate Director for several years. His research spanned topics from probing nuclear scale interactions all the way up to the highest energies available so far at the Large Hadron Collider. He was a valued member of the department for over 50 years, having retired in 2004 but maintaining an active research effort that continued to this day as a member of the ATLAS collaboration. Read more...
David Balzarini (1938 – 2019)
Born in Michigan in 1938, David studied at Michigan State University and completed his PhD at Columbia University before settling in Vancouver with his wife, Janet. David greatly enjoyed his 35 years of teaching, research and supporting graduate students at UBC. He was actively involved in both the Faculty Association and the CAUT, and he sat on the executive of both these organizations for many years. Read more...
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Don Witt (1958 - 2019)
Don was born and raised in Cudahy, Wisconsin. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. After positions at University of California, Santa Barbara and Syracuse University, he eventually became faculty at the University of British Columbia. Don was inspired by physics. He thrived on discussions with colleagues and students on topics ranging from physics phenomena in everyday life to breakthroughs in current research. Read more...
Garth Jones (1932 - 2019)
Garth was Born in Victoria, BC to Stanley Jones and Jessie Needham. He was an older brother to Glyn Jones whom he cherished. Garth received his Bachelor's Degree in 1953 and Masters degree in 1955 from UBC with Honours in Mathematics and Physics, followed by his Doctoral degree in Nuclear Physics in 1959. After receiving his PhD, Garth worked as a Research Fellow at Oxford University before returning to Vancouver in 1961, when he became a Professor of Physics at UBC and later at the TRIUMF laboratory. Read more...
F.W. (Bill) Dalby (1928 - 2018)
Bill Dalby was born in Edmonton on May 5, 1928, and had fond memories of his Alberta childhood: running to school in the snow in moccasins, duck hunting with his father and brother, and poring over books in the local library. He was an exceptional student, interested in virtually everything, but in high school he fell in love with Physics and became the first in his family to attend university. Read more...
David Lindquist (1924 – 2016)
David was born on October 28th, 1924 in Long Beach, California. As a child he moved to Burnaby to be looked after by his maternal grandparents. Soon after graduating from High School there, he joined the US army in 1944 and fought in the Pacific theatre. While fighting in the jungles he contracted Hepatitis and had to be hospitalized. Just before the end of the war he was waiting with thousands of others in the largest armada ever gathered to invade Japan. Fortunately, the war ended before he had to resume fighting. Soon after, he went to Tokyo to serve on General McArthur's Honour Guard. He was later involved with restoring Tokyo’s phone lines. Read more...
Myer Bloom (1928 - 2016)
Myer joined the UBC Physics Department in 1956 and initiated a broad program in NMR that continues to this day. His retirement in 1993 was celebrated with a magnificent symposium at Whistler attended by a large number of colleagues from around the world. He is very well known internationally for his fundamental contributions to Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Physics, and to the applications of NMR to probe the structure and dynamics of biological membranes. Read more...
David Measday (1937 - 2015)
Born just before the Second World War, David was evacuated to the countryside twice to avoid the bombing of London. Educated at Kings College School, Wimbledon, he went to Wadham College, Oxford for his B.A. and D. Phil. Degrees. After moving to Boston, he spent three years as a post-doctoral fellow (PDF) at the Cyclotron Laboratory, Harvard University, where he developed a mono-energetic neutron beam and made several measurements of the neutron-proton interaction. Read more...
Michael K. Craddock (1936 - 2015)
Michael joined the UBC faculty in 1964 as a leading expert in accelerator physics. He was deeply involved with the building and operation of the TRIUMF facility, and served as the Head of the Accelerator Research Division for 13 years among other roles. Read more on the TRIUMF website...
Peter Rastall (1931 - 2015)
Peter was a Lincolnshire lad. His very first memory was of pushing a ball between the rails of a third-floor flat in the city of Bath (to which his parents had temporarily moved), and watching it fall to the ground below and go bouncing down the road. This was perhaps the first sign of an interest in physics, and in gravitation in particular. Read more...
Erich Vogt (1929 - 2014)
Erich Wolfgang Vogt was best known among his many accomplishments for being a co-founder of the TRIUMF laboratory and its longest-serving Director. Erich was born in Steinbach, Manitoba on November 12, 1929, the second (with a twin brother) of six boys. He was especially proud of his small-town Canadian prairie origins, and of the colour, diversity and richness of his nation's immigrant heritage. He received his academic degrees at the University of Manitoba (B.Sc. Honours 1951, M.Sc. 1952), where he was awarded the Gold Medal in Science upon his graduation, and at Princeton University (Ph.D. 1955) as the student of Eugene Wigner, with whom he attended the last scientific lecture given by Albert Einstein. Read more...
Robert Barrie (1927 - 2014)
Robert (Bob) Barrie was born and grew up in Newmains, Lanarkshire, Scotland. He attended Wishaw High School and then Glasgow University where he received a PhD in theoretical physics. He was a Fulbright Scholar and attended Cornell University on exchange. Bob was an accomplished soccer player and played for The Law Hearts Football Club where he was Captain of his team. From 1954 - 1956 Bob worked at S.E.R.L. (Services Electronics Research Laboratory) in Baldock, England. He married Grace Edment in 1954 and in 1957 they moved to Vancouver where he taught physics and conducted research at the University of British Columbia until his retirement. Read More...