The Dartmouth community lost one of its most beloved members last December with the death of physics Professor John Walsh.
"He was an icon -- exactly what you think of as the ideal Dartmouth professor," Dean of the Faculty Ed Berger said of Walsh.
After receiving his masters and doctorate degrees from Columbia University in 1968, Walsh spent the whole of his academic career within the tight-knit community of professors and students who work out of the basement offices and laboratories of Wilder Hall.
Walsh impressed his colleagues in the physics department from his first day.
"We're often wrong with our first impressions, but this time we got it right," Emeritus Professor William Doyle, who was chair of the department at the time of Walsh's arrival said. "You could see a sterling quality when he came in here."
Faculty members and students who spoke with The Dartmouth repeatedly emphasized Walsh's warmth of character and devotion to his work with equal enthusiasm.
"He was just a wonderful teacher," Department Chair Mary Hudson stated, noting, "he always had a very good rapport with students."
"He was an incredibly supportive person, he treated everyone equally," said Heather Andrews, a graduate student who worked under Walsh this year, adding, "he was the kind of person who loved to see people succeed."
"Students discovered that he was a lot of fun to work with very shortly after he got here," Doyle said.
Walsh was extremely proud of his relationships with each of these students. He created a plaque containing the names of each person who had written a thesis under him, which continues to hang in the basement of Wilder.
"He must have shown me [the plaque] ten times," Doyle said, adding, "Nobody else in our department could post something like that -- not with out a lot of blank spots."
Doyle noted that members of the physics department are working with students who were crafting theses under Walsh at the time of his death to ensure that their names will be added to the plaque.
Although Walsh managed to devote great amounts of time to his students, his achievements in research remained extraordinary.
"He was a truly great investigator," Adjunct Professor Maurice Kimmitt told The Dartmouth.
A world leader in his field, one of Walsh's most recent accomplishments came in 1998 when he received the International Free Electron Laser Prize.
The free electron laser differs from traditional lasers in that it emits tunable radiation rather than a single wavelength. These devices usually take up an amount of space comparable to a large building; Walsh was interested in building versions that could be kept within small labs.
He conducted his work on an international scale, spending significant amounts of time at the Frascoti government research lab outside of Rome and at Oxford University's now-defunct nuclear lab.
Walsh's other projects included working on techniques of soil-moisture measurement for the United States Army. This information is vital in determining the quality of surfaces tanks can cover.
An avid skier and devout fisherman, Walsh had lived in Bradford, Vermont with his family since coming to Dartmouth in 1968.
A memorial service is set for 4 p.m. today in Rollins Chapel.
