Physicist Wolfgang Panofsky, first SLAC director, dies at 88

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Wolfgang K.H. “Pief” Panofsky, professor of physics at Stanford University and former director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), died of a heart attack Monday at his Los Altos home. He was 88.

Panofsky was a renowned particle physics researcher and administrator of basic research.

He was also active in nuclear arms control and international peace and security issues.

“Pief Panofsky’s contributions to SLAC and the field of physics have certainly earned him a place in the Stanford pantheon of scholars,” Stanford Provost John Etchemendy said. “But it is equally important to note that his work on nuclear arms control earned him a reputation not only as a scientist but as a patriot whose life will continue to influence and inspire us for generations to come.”

Panofsky won the National Medal of Science in 1969 and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Enrico Fermi Award in 1979.

He was born in Berlin in 1919, the son of noted art historian Erwin Panofsky, and the family emigrated to the United States in 1934. Panofsky graduated from Princeton in 1938 and received his doctorate in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1942. He then served as a consultant on the Manhattan Project, helping build the first atomic bomb during World War II.

Panofsky began working at the radiation Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley in 1945 and became an associate professor of physics in 1948.

He joined the Stanford faculty as a full professor in 1951, directing the high-energy physics lab until 1961 and then led the project to build SLAC, becoming its first director. He held that post until 1984.

Panofsky was a member of the President’s Science Advisory Committee in the Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He also advised the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Energy on their nuclear weapons and arms control programs.

“The world has lost a truly great man,” said Persis Drell, acting director of SLAC.

Panofsky is survived by his wife, Adele, and five children: Richard, Margaret, Edward, Carol and Steven. Memorial services are pending.