John David Gavenda

John David Gavenda, a highly respected condensed-matter physicist at the University of Texas at Austin, died 13 November 2021.

He was born 25 March 1933 in Temple, Bell County, Texas, to Edward and Rose Catharine Machalek Gavenda. David’s great-grandfather, Martin, had brought his family to Galveston, Texas, in 1867, from the village of Hostalkova, then part of the Austrian Empire, now in the Czech Republic. They settled on farms east of Caldwell, Texas.

In 1937 the family moved to a small farm near Rio Hondo, Texas, where David and his older brother, Steven Edward, attended public school along with the girl who later became David’s wife, Janie Louise Yeoman.

In high school, David demonstrated his aptitude for science and mathematics. During his senior year, he was employed by the Brownsville radio station as their control-room engineer. He excelled in the University Interscholastic League competitions.

Following graduation from high school in 1950, David entered the University of Chicago’s Liberal Arts Program. In 1951 he continued his education at the University of Texas at Austin. There, he was selected for membership in Phi Beta Kappa and earned a BS in physics in 1954. He was employed during his sophomore year as a radiotelegraph operator at the Texas Department of Public Safety. From his junior year until the completion of his master’s, he was employed as a technical staff assistant at the University of Texas Defense Research Laboratory. His 1956 master’s thesis was an experimental study of acoustic lenses and prisms. Following completion of his master’s, David entered the PhD program at Brown University. There he was an Edgar Lewis Marston Fellow. He was awarded his PhD in 1959. His dissertation, supervised by R. W. Morse, was a study of temperature by ultrasonic techniques.

David and Janie Yeoman were married in 1952. They had two sons, Victor and Philip.

In 1959 David joined the University Texas physics faculty as an assistant professor. In 1963 he took leave and was a senior research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Metals, University of Chicago. In 1969 he was a NATO Senior Fellow at the University of Oslo in Norway.

David’s research was concentrated on the study of the interaction of conduction electrons with lattice vibrations in metals. These investigations used the magnetic field dependence of the attenuation and velocity of high-frequency sound waves at liquid helium temperatures as a means of measuring the interaction. His last work was directed toward the use of surface acoustic waves to study the properties of electrons near the surfaces of metals.

Another research area of David’s was the measurement and suppression of electromagnetic emissions from computers. This included the development of models for the propagation of electromagnetic waves inside semi-anechoic chambers and in other real-world environments of interest to test engineers.

David’s research resulted in a book, Magnetoacoustic Polarization Phenomena in Solids, in collaboration with Volodya Gudkov of the Ural Federal University. He published more than 50 research papers, plus numerous reports and oral presentations.

Because of his interest in physics education, David was appointed UT Professor of Physics and Education. He was a leader in course and curriculum development in physics at the local, state, and national levels. He chaired the National Steering Committee of the American Institute of Physics Tech Physics Project, which developed a new physics course for technology students. He was among the founding members of the graduate program in science education at Texas.

David was active in a number of professional organizations. Among them were the American Physical Society (Fellow), where he helped organize the Texas Section and served as Vice-Chair, Chair, and Secretary-Treasurer; American Association of Physics Teachers (Fellow), where he chaired several national committees; Texas Academy of Science (Fellow); Sigma Xi; and the Texas Association of College Teachers.

Among David’s many honors was his selection as a member of the AAPT first cohort of fellows who had contributed significantly to physics education. He also received a Distinguished Service Citation for AAPT in 1996 and the 1988 Robert N. Little Award for “Outstanding Contributions to Physics Higher Education in Texas” from the Texas Section of AAPT.

David retired in 1999 and was awarded emeritus professor title. David and Janie were avid tennis players, continuing to play long after retiring. They were longtime members of a progressive Baptist church.