[AGORA-mailing-list] Very sad news

[Ji-hoon Kim]

Dear Colleagues,

It is with my deepest regret that I inform you of the passing of our beloved colleague, Joel Primack.  Please see the message from UC Santa Cruz below.

We are all profoundly saddened by this news, especially because many of us vividly remember him so kindly hosting another Santa Cruz Galaxy Workshop and AGORA Workshop just this past August, together with Nancy.  In addition to his many great achievements as a cosmologist, physicist, and astrophysicist, he was one of the principal architects of the AGORA Project in 2012 and helped rallied the computational galaxy formation community behind it for all these years.  He was a wonderful mentor to the entire AGORA Collaboration, and to me personally as well.  The news feels especially heartbreaking and shocking to me, as my student Hyeonyong and I were in communication with him about our Paper X as recently as just ten days ago.  He had been offering generous guidance on the SKIRT images in the paper and was very happy with the improvements.  I am truly heartbroken and at a loss for proper words.

As we receive any further updates (e.g., information about a memorial service), we will make sure to share them with the Collaboration.  While we ask for your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time, please also feel free to share your own anecdotes and memories of Joel in this thread.  Thank you very much for your attention.  

Sincerely,
Ji-hoon and Santi




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Passed on from colleagues at UCSC.

Dear colleagues:

It is with deep regret that we send news of the passing of renowned UCSC
cosmologist and astrophysicist Joel Primack.  Joel battled courageously
for many years with pancreatic cancer and was actively participating in
his many collaborations until just a few days ago.

Joel was a giant in the field of cosmology and galaxy formation.  Best known
as a co-author of the theory of cold dark matter (CDM) and galaxy formation,
his contributions shaped the foundations of the subject, and his passing leaves
a gap that cannot be filled.

Joel's impact extended well beyond cosmology.  He played main roles
in founding the Congressional Science and Technology Fellowship program
and ending the use of nuclear reactors in space.  With his wife
Nancy Abrams he authored two books that argued for the importance
of modern cosmic knowledge in shaping human values.

Joel received  a great many honors and awards, including the Leo Szilard
Lectureship  Award of the American Physical Society for promoting the use of
physics for the benefit of society, the American Physical Society Julius Edgar
Lilienfeld Prize for outstanding contributions to physics and exceptional skills in
lecturing to diverse audiences, and the Philip Hauge Abelson Prize, awarded
by the American Association for the Advancement of Science for distinguished
scientific achievement and notable services to the scientific community.

More information concerning remembrances and a memorial will follow.

We would be grateful if you could share this news with colleagues in your
organization and with any others in the field who would be interested.

>From Joel's colleagues in the UC Santa Cruz
   Departments of Physics and Astronomy & Astrophysics
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Ji-hoon Kim
Associate Professor
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University
www.jihoonkim.org / mornkr at snu.ac.kr
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