Edgar Pearlstein

Edgar Pearlstein was born in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on 3 March 1927 and passed away on 15 January 2019. He was educated in public schools and at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University), where he earned his PhD in physics when he was 23 years old. He held a postdoctoral position for two years at the University of Illinois, after which he returned to teach and participate in research at his old alma mater.

Ed joined the physics department at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln in 1956 as an assistant professor. He progressed rapidly through the ranks, becoming a full professor in 1963. Ed’s research specialty was the effects of radiation on solids. His research was nationally recognized, and at one time he held the longest-running continuous research grant from the Atomic Energy Commission. Ed was a fellow of the American Physical Society.

Ed was a deep and critical thinker in all aspects of his life, and he earned the respect of his faculty colleagues. He was one of the most active participants in discussions during scientific lectures in the department, with a well-deserved reputation for keeping speakers on their toes. He regularly gave talks in the department on the most recent research developments, introducing graduate students to new areas of research and inspiring some of them to redirect their thesis research.

He often gave public lectures to help people distinguish between myth and scientific reality, and he regularly volunteered to judge science fairs involving budding young scientists. Ed was an excellent, but demanding, teacher, expecting his students to learn at a high level. He developed new courses and greatly modified others. For his contributions to the teaching program, he was recognized with a Distinguished Teaching Award in 1981. He retired from the University of Nebraska in 1995 but continued to be a regular attendee of the departmental colloquia and seminars until almost the end of his life.

Besides his professional activities, Ed was in frequent contact with the community via letters to the editor, which became an avocation for him. He was especially interested in human rights and religious freedom issues. He was also active in the community band and was a Dixieland jazz aficionado. Ed became a vegetarian when he was a young teenager, and later in life he became a vegan, reflecting his concern for all living creatures.