Frederick Reif

Frederick Reif (April 24, 1927 – August 11, 2019)^[1] was an American physicist. He was an emeritus professor in physics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University.^[2]

Biography

Reif was born in

He was later hired as a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught from 1960 to 1989.^[5] At Berkeley, he discovered that electrons in liquid helium were attached to microscopic and quantized vortex rings, matching the prediction made by Lars Onsager and Richard Feynman. He also discovered gapless superconductivity, which was proposed by Alexei Abrikosov and Lev Gor'kov. His students at Berkeley included George W. Rayfield, Jill H. Larkin, and Clifford Surko.^[5]

He then joined the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University and remained a faculty member until 2000. His research in physics has focused on properties of matter at low temperatures, and he also focused on the physics education and the psychology of learning during the second half of his career.^[5]

Reif was known for his research in physics education.

Reif was a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.^[2]

Personal life

Reif died on August 11, 2019, at age 92.^[5] He was a longtime resident of Fox Chapel, Pennsylvania.^[1] His first wife was Mildred Dresselhaus. He later married Laura Ott and then Jill H. Larkin Wellman, his former Ph.D. student. His sister Liane Reif-Lehrer, was a biochemist and professor at Harvard Medical School, and his niece is anthropologist Erica Lehrer.^[6]

References