Obituaries

Burton Richter, PhD, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) Senior Fellow, died in Stanford on July 18. He was 87. “Burt was a member in good standing of that highly select group of California physicists who revolutionized our understanding of the basic forces of physics in the 20th Century,” […]

Former UC President and UC Irvine Chancellor Jack Peltason, a CCST Senior Fellow, has died at 91 of Parkinson’s disease. “He was passionate that science should inform policy,” said CCST Executive Director Susan Hackwood. “Jack Peltason was a true leader and a thoughtful scholar.” During his distinguished career, Peltason served as the President of The […]

CCST Board member and former Council chair Larry Papay passed away on July 28, 2014 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 77. “I knew Larry Papay for about twenty years beginning at Bechtel and continuing through my time on CCST,” said CCST Council member Jude Laspa, retired Deputy Chief Operating Officer of […]

CCST Senior Fellow Dr. David Okrent, Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of California, Los Angeles and world renowned nuclear physicist and expert on nuclear reactor safety, died at his home in Los Angeles on December 14, 2012, after a sudden illness. He was 90. Dr. Okrent obtained his MS and […]

When astronaut Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, passed away this week at 61, she left behind a decades-long legacy of commitment to the science and technology community that resonates deeply in the California communities where she lived and worked. “I was privileged to know Sally Ride,” said CCST Council Member Julie Meier […]

CCST Senior Fellow F. Sherwood Rowland, who passed away on March 10 at age 84, was known for many significant accomplishments. A founding professor of the Chemistry Department at UC Irvine, he was a widely acclaimed scientist who won a Nobel Prize for demonstrating that chlorofluorocarbons damage and could destroy the Earth’s ozone layer. But […]

Robert J. Spinrad, former CCST Board and Council member, died on September 2nd of Lou Gehrig’s disease. “For the many of us who knew Bob, we will remember him as a great mind – acute, passionate and imaginative,” said CCST Executive Director Susan Hackwood. Spinrad was a pioneer in computer science, building his first computer […]

CCST Fellow Arthur Kornberg, MD, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1959, died on October 26 of respiratory failure at Stanford Hospital. He was 89. Dr. Kornberg shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine with Severo Ochoa, MD, for discovery of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of DNA. He was instrumental in building the […]

CCST Fellow Duane McRuer died of prostate cancer January 24, 2007 at his home in Manhattan Beach, California. He was 81. McRuer was Chairman of Systems Technology, Inc. (STI), from 1993 until his death, and was President and Technical Director, STI, 1957-1993. He has also been a Regent’s Lecturer at the University of CA Santa […]

Max Tibor Weiss, CCST Council member since 2001, died June 10 at age 83. He was Retired Vice President and General Manager of the Electronic Systems Division of the Northrop Grumman Corporation. Weiss received his M.S. in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His honors and awards include […]