In Memoriam: Sam Hoblit
March 24, 2015
Samuel Hoblit of Brookhaven Lab’s Nuclear Science and Technology Department died on March 16, 2015. He was 57 years old.
Hoblit arrived at Brookhaven in September of 1988 and worked at various positions in the Physics Department for two decades. He left the Laboratory in 2007, but returned in April of 2010 as an associate physicist in the Nuclear Science and Technology Department, where he worked in the National Nuclear Data Center (NNDC). He was promoted to physicist in October of 2012.
NNDC Director Michal Herman said that Hoblit’s work in evaluating nuclear data was primarily in the area of covariances or uncertainty quantification. He was also involved in developing EMPIRE, a modeling code for nuclear reactions.
“He was a marvelous programmer – really the best programmer we ever had in the group – so it’s a big loss,” Herman said. “He was also a very nice person, gentle and always ready to help. He was really very special.”
On a special webpage put together by his NNDC colleagues, they note, “He had a way of looking at things with optimism and a subtle mid-west sense of humor that would refocus difficult discussions. All of us will miss his kind personality, calm, sense of humor and his taste for great wines. We'll never forget him.”
Hoblit is survived by a brother, three step-sisters, two step-brothers, three nephews and numerous step-nieces and step-nephews.
2015-5597 | INT/EXT | Newsroom
