Obituary of Robert Shafer (1936-2012)

MIT-Postdoctorate appointment 1967-1969 Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory 1969-1986 Los Alamos National Laboratory 1986-1998 (retirement)

Robert Shafer died suddenly at his home in Los Alamos, NM Nov. 11,2012. Born in Berkeley, CA June 2, 1936, he was 76 years old.

Robert Shafer was a recognized expert in beam instrumentation for charged-particle accelerators. He is best known for his world-class expertise on beam position monitors. Following undergraduate study at Stanford (bachelor’s degree in 1956), he earned his doctorate in physics in 1966 at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1966. He spent 2 years at MIT and then joined the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, IL (1969-1986).

He finished his career as a scientific staff member in the Accelerator Technology Division at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He contributed to the diagnostics at of the Tevatron at Fermilab along with the other accelerators at that facility. His work at LANL included developing instrumentation for the proton storage ring at the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE). He also served as a consultant at CERN, Brookhaven, and SLAC accelerator facilities. He had a large number of scientific publications in both physics and engineering journals.

He is survived by his wife Ann Shafer and his sister Gretchen Simpkins.