Thomas Alan Griffy
Tom Griffy died on 4 May 2019 after a brief but serious and incurable illness.
Thomas (Tom) Alan Griffy was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on 16 December 1936 to Judson Harmon Griffy Jr and Dicie Johnston Griffy. One of Tom’s sisters, Billye, was the first woman to serve as vice president of a bank in Oklahoma.
Tom attended Classen High School in Oklahoma City and graduated in 1955. He was a standout student in science, math, band, and choir.
Tom received a full scholarship to Rice Institute (now Rice University) when only 200 students were accepted from around the world. There was only a two-year time span between completing his undergraduate degree in 1959 and receiving his PhD in 1961, all at Rice. His PhD supervisor was Lawrence (Larry) C. Biedenharn. Tom and Larry were lifelong friends, collaborators, and later colleagues. Following his PhD, Tom moved to Duke University to work with Biedenharn.
In 1962,Tom moved to California, where he was invited to work at Stanford University with Nobel Prize–winner Robert Hofstadter. Hofstadter was using electron–deuteron inelastic scattering to determine form factors. Several important papers on the neutron form factors resulted from this collaboration.
Tom’s time at Stanford was a very prolific period in his research career. He had 12 or more papers that resulted from his work there. Among those papers was a collaboration with Leonard I. Schiff on electromagnetic form factors. In 1967 Tom also published a “Resource Letter NR1 on Nuclear Reactions” in the American Journal of Physics. The article was prepared at the request of the American Association of Physics Teachers Committee on Resource Letters.
In 1965 Tom was offered an associate professor faculty position at the University of Texas at Austin. The department was interested in adding strength in nuclear theory to the Center for Nuclear Studies. Tom and his wife, Penny, decided that this would let them be nearer their families, and Tom accepted the offer. In 1968 Tom was promoted to full professor.
From 1970–74 and 1996–2000, Tom was associate dean of the graduate school. In 1974 he was selected chair of the physics department; he served until 1984, an especially long tenure. Tom held many important positions at UT including chair of the patent committee. Tom was also selected as a fellow of the American Physical Society. He was a member of the Acoustical Society of America.
Early in his time at UT, Tom served as graduate advisor for the department. He was instrumental in revising the graduate curriculum and transforming to a new method of qualifying for PhD candidacy.
Tom was an excellent teacher, always giving well-prepared lectures. His required graduate classes in electrodynamics were very popular with graduate students. He received the College of Natural Sciences Teaching Excellence Award in 1998.
Tom collaborated regularly with the UT Applied Research Laboratory, supervising graduate students working at the lab. Much of this work was related to underwater acoustics and electromagnetics.
Tom also spent a number of years advising a federal agency in the intelligence community on technology. He was asked to provide science-based assessments of various potential national security threats and also of various US countermeasures. For the same agency, he was also quite active in assessing technology to counter terrorist threats.
John Wheeler and Harry Swinney gave Tom important credit for his negotiations that resulted in both joining the University of Texas physics department. Other important accomplishments that occurred during Tom’s tenure as chair was the addition of Nobel Prize–winner Steven Weinberg to the physics faculty, creation of the Institute of Fusion Studies, and securing Marshall Rosenbluth to be its director.
Tom and Penny were members of St. John’s United Methodist Church since 1965. Tom, a man of faith, created every week for over 30 years Bible lessons for the Wesley Adult Bible Class.
Tom was an active member of the Austin Town and Gown Club, an organization formed in 1902 by a group of Austin men who wished to establish a club composed of citizens of Austin (“Town” members) and faculty from the University of Texas (“Gown” members).
Tom also loved his hobbies, including photography, watches, handguns, ham radio, and flying small aircraft. Tom retired in 2003.
He is survived by his wife of 61 years, Penny Walker Griffy, son David and wife Marva, son Alan and wife Tanya, and daughter Marjorie and husband Chris; brother Ted Griffy, granddaughters Shelby and Stella, and great-granddaughter Rory Elizabeth Rieger.
