Obituary: Alastair G.W. Cameron, Noted Astrophysicist and Space Scientist

OBITUARY: ALASTAIR G.W. CAMERON, NOTED ASTROPHYSICIST AND SPACE
SCIENTIST
>>From UA Office of University Communications, 520-621-1877
October 21, 2005

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Contacts for more information are listed at the end of this release
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Alastair G.W. (Graham Walter) Cameron, 80, one of the great
astrophysicists
of the 20th century, died of heart failure in Tucson, Ariz., on Oct. 3.

Cameron, was born June 21, 1925, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He sought to
unlock
the fundamental mysteries of the universe, the stars and the solar
system.
His public service influenced the course of the U.S. planetary
exploration
program over the past few decades.

Cameron did fundamental research in astrophysics, planetary sciences,
and
meteoritics. He was among the first to develop the theory of
nucleosynthesis
? the production of the chemical elements in stars ? and to
advocate that
the formation of the moon resulted from a giant impact on the early
Earth by
an object at least the size of Mars.

Cameron was a scholar, researcher, advisor, editor and distinguished
member
and fellow of many prestigious and leading scientific organizations and
associations. He was a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences
and a
fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Royal
Society
of Canada. Cameron was also a fellow of the American Association for
the
Advancement of Science, the Meteoritical Society, and the American
Geophysical Union.

Among his many advisory roles, Cameron said his most important was as
chairman of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences
from
1976 to 1982.

He spent 26 years of his academic career at Harvard University
beginning in
1973 as associate director for planetary sciences at the
Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics and, later, as head of Harvard's astronomy
department. He was named professor emeritus at Harvard University and
appointed the Donald H. Menzel Research Professor of Astrophysics in
1999, a
position he held at the time of his death.

At the time of his death he was also a senior research scientist in the
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at The University of Arizona. He was a
member
of the Arizona Senior Academy in Tucson, which is a non-profit
organization
devoted to life-long learning, thinking and doing.

Cameron's research interests included nucleosynthesis and associated
areas
of nuclear physics, stellar evolution, supernova explosions, neutron
stars,
star and planet formation, physics of planets and planetary
atmospheres. He
considered the main objective of his scientific research was to
understand
the structures and origins of astronomical objects and systems.

"As I look back on the account of my research career, I am struck by
how
fortunate I have been in the timing of my research opportunities. My
training was in nuclear physics, and the field of nuclear astrophysics
opened up just at the right time for me," he said in Adventures in
Cosmogony, a retrospective of his career as he approached his
retirement
published in 1999.

He became a leader and innovator in the application of emerging
computer
technology for solving astrophysics problems.

He was a champion for academic freedom and a proponent for government
funding to support basic research as a means to further technical
development and applied research in many areas of knowledge, including
the
sciences.

Among his many awards and medals of recognition for his contribution to
the
sciences was the R.M. Petrie Prize Lecture Award from the Canadian
Astronomical Society in 1970, the NASA Distinguished Public Service
Medal,
awarded in 1983, the J. Lawrence Smith Medal from the National Academy
of
Sciences in 1988, the Harry H. Hess Medal from the American Geophysical
Union in 1989, the Leonard Medal from the Meteoritical Society for his
outstanding contributions to the science of meteoritics in 1994, and
the
Russell Lecturer prize from the American Astronomical Society, awarded
to
him in 1997 for a lifetime of preeminence in astronomical research.

Five days before his death, Cameron was notified that he had also been
named the 2006 recipient of the Hans A. Bethe prize from the Division
of
Nuclear Physics of the American Physical Society "for his pioneering
work in
developing the fundamental concepts of nuclear astrophysics. These
basic
ideas, laid out almost 50 years ago, are still the basis of current
research
in this field," the society said.

His numerous published works spanned decades. His last research
article,
"Some Nucleosynthesis Effects Associated with R-Process Jets," was
published
in 2003 in the Astrophysical Journal.

Cameron began his career as an undergraduate at the University of
Manitoba,
Canada, during the final years of World War II. Later he earned a
doctorate
in nuclear physics at the University of Saskatchewan, with renowned
Canadian
physicist Leon Katz as his thesis advisor.

In between the two degrees, he worked at Chalk River, Ontario, on the
atomic energy project of the National Research Council of Canada. He
continued his academic career with an assistant professorship at Iowa
State
College, applying nuclear physics to astrophysical problems. He later
returned to Chalk River before immigrating to the United States in
1959,
when he worked at the California Institute of Technology. He was among
the
first to be hired by NASA's newly established Goddard Institute for
Space
Studies in 1961 and took a leading role in organizing scientific
conferences, which helped give the institute an academic flavor.

He was a visiting lecturer at Yale for six years from 1962, when he
became
involved in many branches of science, including nuclear physics,
astrophysics, geophysics, planetary science and meteoritics.

He moved to the Belfer Graduate School of Science of Yeshiva University
in
New York in 1966 before joining Harvard seven years later.

His grandfather, C.N. Bell, was an officer of the Winnipeg Grain
Exchange
for many years. His father, A.T. Cameron, was a professor of
biochemistry at
the Manitoba Medical College. Cameron was predeceased by his wife
Elizabeth
in 2001. He is survived by his sister, Janet Matthews; his niece,
Valerie
Matthews Lemieux; her husband, Ron Lemieux, and their family of
Winnipeg.

The Arizona Senior Academy held a memorial service for Cameron in
Tucson on
Oct. 11.

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For more information, please contact:

Michael J. Drake, head and director
UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
520-621-6962 drake@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Marcia Neugebauer, president
The Arizona Senior Academy
520-647-3833 mneugeb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

W. David Arnett, Regents Professor
UA astronomy department
520-529-1164 darnett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Katharina Lodders, associate research professor
Earth and planetary sciences department
Washington University
313-935-4851 wustl.edu

.