O B I T U A R I E S
Three faculty remembered
Melvin Gottlieb, a physicist who was an international leader in the field of fusion energy research, died Dec. 1 in Haverford, Pa. He was 83.
Educated at the University of Chicago, Gottlieb came to Princeton in 1954 as associate director of what has become the Plasma Physics Laboratory. He was director of the laboratory and professor of astrophysical sciences from 1961 to 1980.
Gottlieb led the laboratory at a very exciting time. In the mid-1960s, initial experimental results from the Soviet Union pointed to a new path to the very high temperature plasmas, or ionized gases, needed for making fusion energy. Under Gottlieb's leadership, the laboratory took the international lead in extending these results, passing quickly through three generations of highly successful "tokamak" experiments.
Gottlieb devoted considerable time during his career to working toward better understanding and cooperation with other nations in the development of fusion power. He and other laboratory personnel made frequent trips to meet with scientists abroad and encouraged extended visits here by foreign scientists. He also was involved in high-level discussions with government officials responsible for energy policy in many countries. In 1971, he was a recipient of the NATO Senior Foreign Fellowship in Science.
At the national level, Gottlieb was active in many organizations whose purposes included finding alternative safe sources of energy. He had a long association with the American Physical Society and was founder and first chair of its Plasma Physics Division. In 1980, he was vice chair of its Panel on Public Affairs. He also was a member of the American Nuclear Society and of Scientists and Engineers for Safe Energy.
After his retirement from the laboratory, Gottlieb continued consulting in his field and, from 1980 to 1992, served as chair of the Nuclear Oversight Committee of the Public Service Electric and Gas Co. of New Jersey.
Gottlieb is survived by his wife, Golda; and his daughter, Paula Bastian, of Cedar Run, N.J.
Economist, historian, public servant and scholar Charles P. Issawi died Dec. 8 at his home in Pennswood Village, Pa. He was 84.
Issawi was the Bayard Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies emeritus at Princeton, where he had been a faculty member from 1975 until his retirement in 1986.
He was educated at Victoria College, Alexandria, Egypt, and Magdalen College, Oxford, England, where he read philosophy, politics and economics and specialized in economics. His public career began with his appointment to the Egyptian Ministry of Finance (1937-1938), and he later became chief of research at the National Bank of Egypt (1938-1943). He also served briefly at the Arab Office in Washington and then joined the United Nations' secretariat in the Middle East Unit of the Department of Economic Affairs (1948-1955).
His teaching career began at the American University of Beirut (1943-1947). In 1951, he joined Columbia University and was named the Ragnar Nurkse Professor of Economics. He subsequently was appointed director of Columbia's Near and Middle East Institute. After retiring from Princeton, he served as a visiting professor at New York University from 1987 to 1991.
Issawi wrote three major books about contemporary Egypt: "Egypt: An Economic and Social Analysis" (1947), "Egypt at Mid-Century" (1954) and "Egypt in Revolution" (1963). A second major theme of his work was developed in his four volumes on the economic history of the Middle East in the 19th and 20th centuries. Another group of his writings dealt with the politics and economics of the oil industry.
In addition to his professional and specialized writings, Issawi produced a number of essays containing his reflections on the history of the Middle East. Some of these were published in a 1981 collection entitled "The Arab World's Legacy." A more lighthearted, yet profoundly serious, commentary on life and letters was offered in a book he named "Issawi's Laws of Social Motion." His last book, which appeared in 1999, was a memoir entitled "Growing Up Different: Memoirs of a Middle East Scholar."
Issawi is survived by his wife, Janina. A memorial service will take place in February at the University Chapel.
Marius Jansen, world-renowned scholar and professor of history and East Asian studies emeritus at the University, died Dec. 10 at his home in Princeton.
Jansen received his undergraduate education at Princeton, where he majored in European history of the Renaissance and Reformation eras. He was a member of the Class of 1944, earning his A.B. degree in 1943. He graduated summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. Following three years of military service devoted to the study of Japan, and including service in Okinawa and the initial year of the Allied Occupation of Japan, he turned his interests from European to Japanese history. He earned his doctorate from Harvard University.
Jansen began his teaching career at the University of Washington in 1950 and moved to Princeton in 1959 as professor in the departments of history and oriental studies. He was one of a small group of specialists in the study of Japan who deepened the American understanding of Japanese history and helped introduce Japan into college and university curricula. His students, in turn, fanned out to develop Japanese studies throughout the United States.
At Princeton, where he received the Howard Behrman Award for excellence in teaching in the humanities, Jansen was the director of the Program in East Asian Studies (1962-68) and the first chair of the newly formed Department of East Asian Studies (1969-72). He retired in 1992.
Throughout his career, Jansen was active on committees for learned societies, for the Fulbright Commission; in the Association for Asian Studies, to which he was elected president in 1977; and for the Japan Foundation, whose American Committee he chaired for 17 years. He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was recognized for his contributions to Japanese studies and Japanese-American relations by the Japan Foundation, the city of Osaka, the Japan Society of New York and the emperor of Japan, who conferred on him the Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1985. His long service and many contributions to the study of Japan and its culture were recognized in his appointment to the Japan Academy in spring 1999 and the award of the Prize for Distinguished Cultural Merit (Bunka Korosho) later that year. Jansen was the first non-Japanese to receive this award.
In addition to many articles in both English and Japanese, Jansen was the author and editor of more than 20 books.
Jansen is survived by his wife, Jean; and his daughter, Marya Christine McGale of Garwood, N.J. A memorial and appreciation of Jansen's work will take place at the University early in 2001.
S T A F F O B I T U A R I E
S
Current employee
Lorraine Oliver, 58, a guard at the Plasma Physics
Lab since October, died Dec. 11.
Born in Dayton, Ohio, and a longtime
resident of Hightstown, she is survived by daughters Sharon
Oliver and Lisa Crispi; sons Richard Patterson, Carl Drager
and John Oliver; and a companion, Howard Mort.
Retired employees
September: Dorothy Bevensee, 87 (1952-1971, controller); and Helen Brooks, 82 (1968-1982, alumni records).
November: Douglas Collins, 80 (1957-1969 and 1978-1982, Plasma Physics Lab).
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Editor: Ruth Stevens Staff writer: Yvonne Chiu Hays Calendar editor: Carolyn Geller Contributing writers: Marilyn Marks, Steven Schultz Photographer: Denise Applewhite Design: Mahlon Lovett, Laurel Masten Cantor Web edition: Mahlon Lovett |
