Jerome Lewis Duggan

It is with great sadness that I write to tell you that Jerry Duggan passed away Sunday, August 31. He had been in the hospital since June 10 after he accidentally fell and hit his head, which resulted in brain swelling and bleeding. Jerry was taking a doctor prescribed blood thinner at the time.

Recently, Jerry seemed to be getting much better and a week ago he was moved to a physical therapy facility in Denton, Texas. He had begun physical therapy and all of us believed he would be back home in a few more weeks.

Jerry was a great husband, father, brother, uncle, teacher and friend to everyone that was fortunate enough to meet and know him. In addition to his family, friends, students, and colleagues, he loved two things – fishing and sharing his love of physics. It brought him tremendous joy to watch his students become physicists, professors, doctors and most importantly, productive scientists. Physics was both his career choice and his passion. He was once quoted saying “I enjoy research because I get to study the nucleus of the atom. It’s really the last frontier to study.”

Jerry received a PhD in Physics from Louisiana State University in 1961. His dissertation research was done at Oak Ridge National Laboratory under the direction of Dr. Philip D. Miller under an Atomic Energy Commission Graduate Research Fellowship. He was an Assistant Professor at the University of Georgia from 1961 to 1963 and then became a staff member at the Oak Ridge Associated Universities before coming to the University of North Texas (UNT) in 1973. During his career he was awarded the University of North Texas President’s Award, which is the highest award given at UNT. He was awarded a special medal at the1995 meeting of the Particle Induced X-Ray Emission Conference in Padua, Italy, and was made a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2000. Jerry has published over 200 refereed publications and a number of book chapters and conference proceedings. Jerry is most proud of the15 PhD students, 20 MS students, and countless undergraduates he has mentored during his career.

In 1968, Jerry started the Small Accelerator Conference in Oak Ridge, TN and had the second conference in 1970. In 1973, Jerry moved to the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton, TX as a Full Professor of Physics and brought the Accelerator Conference with him. The conference was renamed in 1974 to the International Conference on the Application of Accelerators in Research and Industry (CAARI) to emphasize the industrial applications of particle accelerators. The 23^rd CAARI conference was held from May 25-30, 2014 in San Antonio, TX and Jerry attended as Conference Chair Emeritus. He loved the conference and the contributions it brought to physics. For him it was a great opportunity to network and talk to lots of like-minded physicists from around the world. We all know Jerry liked to talk and what could be more fun than talking about physics!!!! He made many dear friends through this conference and you meant the world to him.

Please forward this note to any friends or colleagues that you think would want to know.

Memorial Service

A memorial service is being held on Saturday, September 6^th at 10 a.m.:

St. Mark Catholic Church
2600 Pennsylvania Drive
Denton, TX 76205

In lieu of flowers:

A scholarship fund is being established in honor of Dr. Jerome L Duggan. Donations can be made to:

Dr. Jerome L. Duggan Memorial Scholarship in Physics
UNT Foundation
1155 Union Circle #311250
Denton, TX 76203
http://giving.unt.edu

Michael Harcrow
University of North Texas
Physics Finance Office
michael.harcrow@unt.edu