John David Crawford ’77

John David Crawford, a physicist and associate professor in the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy at the U. of Pittsburgh, died Aug. 23, 1998, from Burkitt's lymphoma, at Montefiore Hospital in Pittsburgh. He was 44.

At Princeton, John played j.v. tennis. He earned his doctorate in physics at the U. of California, Berkeley. His dissertation, completed in 1983, dealt with bifurcation theory of collisionless plasmas, a subject that remained close to his heart throughout his career.

He spent several years at the U. of California, San Diego and the Institute for Nonlinear Science, also in San Diego, before becoming an assistant professor at the U. of Pittsburgh in 1990. In 1997 he was codirector of the department's Research Experiences for Undergraduates program, which exposes minority students to scientific studies. The students who worked with him benefited immensely from his personal attention, careful choice of projects, cheerfulness, and insight. John was widely known for his clear lectures on complex, subtle aspects of nonlinear phenomena, especially bifurcation theory. He was a prolific writer, with more than 80 scientific papers to his credit.

He is survived by his wife, Karen Shichman Crawford; their sons, Ryan and Jacob; his parents, Stanley and Saradell Crawford; and his brothers, Stanley Everett Jr. and Samuel Harris. The class extends its condolences to them all.

The Class of 1977