E. Atlee Jackson

Edwin Atlee Jackson passed away peacefully in Austin, TX on March 9, 2010 from natural causes. Atlee and Cindi (nee Cynthia Anne Gregg), his loving wife of 55 years, have been living in Austin since April, 2009. They moved to Austin from Urbana, IL where they had been living since 1961. Professor Jackson was born in Lyons, NY in 1931. He was the youngest of five children born to Helen Jean Carroll and Fredrick Wolcott Jackson. He grew up in Syracuse, NY and attended Syracuse University where he earned his B.S., M.S., and PhD in Physics. Following his education at Syracuse University, he was an Assistant Lecturer at Brandeis University; Postdoctoral Fellow at Air Force Cambridge Research Center; and Research Staff Member at Princeton University. Professor Jackson accepted the position of Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, IL in 1961. In 1964 he became an Associate Professor and in 1977 he became a full Professor of Physics. He was a Charter Faculty Member of the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, which opened in 1989, where he was Director of the Center for Complex Systems Research, a position he served in until his retirement in 1998. He served as Professor Emeritus from 1998-2010. During his long career Professor Jackson also served at the FOM-Institut voor Plasma Fysica, Jutphaas, The Netherlands, 1967-1968; as Visiting Staff Member, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 1971; Institute for Electromagnetic Field Theory and Plasma Physics, Chalmers University, Goteberg, Sweden, 1984; as Visiting Professor, Joint Institute for Fusion Theory, Institute of Plasma Physics, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan, 1984-1985; and as Core Researcher with the Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM, 1992-98. Atlee Jackson was a self-taught classical guitarist and pianist, as well as an accomplished amateur painter and sculptor. Professionally, he developed numerous courses at the University of Illinois and authored over 80 articles in professional journals. He further authored several texts, including: Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics, 1968; Perspectives of Nonlinear Dynamics, vol. 1, 1989, vol. 2, 1990, Japanese translation, 1994; and Exploring Nature's Dynamics, 2001. Atlee is survived by his loving wife Cindi; son Eric (Jerilyn) of Stillwater, MN; son Mark (Lisa) of Austin, TX; grandchildren Rachel and Alex Jackson, sister-in-law Barbara Jackson, brother-in-law Hugh Gregg, II (Joy) and numerous nieces and nephews. He will be greatly missed by his family and his friends around the world. A celebration of Atlee Jackson's life will be held in Urbana, IL during the summer of 2010.