Obituary of Stanley Bashkin

Stanley Bashkin received a B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1944 (cum laude) and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Wisconsin in 1950. Following academic and research positions at Louisiana State University, the University of Iowa, California Institute of Technology and Australian National University, he joined the Physics faculty at the University of Arizona in 1962, where he served as a dedicated teacher and researcher throughout his career, until his retirement in 1995. Shortly after his arrival in 1962 he persuaded University president Richard Harvill to purchase a two million volt Van de Graaff accelerator to explore his new idea for atomic physics research called Beam Foil Spectroscopy. This new approach was very successful and led to an extensive federally-funded research program, also supported by NATO, involving an additional five million volt accelerator and many faculty, students and visitors over the next 30 years. A world-wide research effort in Beam Foil Spectroscopy ensued, with practitioners and colleagues found in Sweden, Germany, the U.K. and many other countries. To accommodate this expanded research program, in 1966 he designed and supervised the construction of a significant addition at the east end of the PAS building on the UA campus. A unique design element to fit the new Van de Graaff accelerator in its lab space was the use of an extremely heavy magnet, supported on a decommissioned Navy gun-mount, to rotate and direct the ion beam toward the different targets required for different kinds of experiments. Professor Bashkin was instrumental in establishing the University of Arizona as a first rate teaching and research university. He also served for a time as an Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences. He was a fellow of both the American Physical Society and the Optical Society of America.