University Times

Wilfried W. Daehnick, professor emeritus in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, died Jan. 24, 2003. He was 74.

A distinguished experimental nuclear physicist, Daehnick’s earliest work used nuclear reactions to decipher the orbital motion of neutrons and protons, and the orbit-changing collisions between them, in atomic nuclei. The bulk of this effort was done at Pitt’s cyclotron and Van de Graaf accelerators in the 1960s and 1970s, and he continued it briefly at higher energies at the Indiana University cyclotron in the early 1980s.

He also developed experiments to study “weak interaction,” one of the four fundamental interactions in nature. Later, he led the effort by Pitt and Indiana physicists to study the production of pions (contributors to the forces between neutrons and protons) at extremely low energies. Daehnick continued to work on that problem until a few weeks before his death.

Daehnick worked as a research associate and instructor at Princeton University from 1959 to 1962, prior to coming to Pitt as assistant professor. He was appointed associate professor in 1965 and professor in 1969. He was named professor emeritus in 1996 upon his retirement from Pitt. He also served as director of Pitt’s Scaife Nuclear Physics Laboratory, 1978-1979.

In addition to his duties as a professor of physics and a researcher, Daehnick served on a number of University committees. He was chairman of the executive committee of Pitt’s Computing Center, 1977-1980; a member of the Senate budget policies committee from 1978 to 1990, including serving as chair of the committee (1981-1983) and vice chair (1987-1988).

He also chaired the Executive Committee for Academic Computing, 1984-1992 and 1993-1994, the Senate commonwealth relations committee, 1984-1986, and the University of Pittsburgh Research Council, 1989-1995.

According to colleagues, Daehnick was equally at home as an academician and administrator, serving as associate provost for research from 1989 to 1995.

“He was a very talented and hard-working colleague,” said Provost James Maher. “I knew him very well in the physics department and as associate provost, which he was for a short time after I took over the provost’s office [in 1994].”

Maher said Daehnick was responsible for a number of initiatives and improvements in the provost’s office, including starting the annual Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award and re-organizing the Office of Research. “He was a driving force in developing our research allocations policy, which has helped us get our research enterprise to the high levels it is today. He also took the lead in developing our conflict of interest and research integrity policies,” which are integral to a successful research university, Maher said.

The provost described Daehnick as a hardworking, serious man. “He was a very reliable colleague.”

As part of his administrative duties, Daehnick in the 1990s served as liaison to BPC, the committee he served on as a faculty representative for many years.

“I got to know Wilfried when he was chair of BPC when I first became involved with that committee,” said Philip Wion of the English department. “He provided excellent leadership. He was always clear, direct, prepared and forceful.”

Wion added that Daehnick brought similar qualities to his role as an administrator. “He was no-nonsense and focused, and he always had the best interests of the University at heart. He will be missed.”

Daehnick enjoyed both roles, he told the University Times in October 1994 after he decided to step away from administration and return to the physics department as a full-time faculty member.

“Let me say that I have had a good time as an administrator,” he said at that time. “I love both administration and research, but I love research more. I decided that five years of reduced research activity was more than is safe in a field like physics.

“Do I regret anything? Not really,” Daehnick said. “If I had not tried my hand at being an administrator, I think I would be saying to myself today, ‘Well, Daehnick, you always complain about things not being done right at this University. Why don’t you do anything about it?’”

The Berlin-born Daehnick received his B.S in physics with a minor in electrical engineering from the Technical University in Munich in 1951. He earned an M.S. in physics with a minor in mathematics from the University of Hamburg, Germany, in 1955. A Ph.D. in nuclear physics followed in 1958 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

He was elected to the Sigma Xi honorary physics society in 1958, and became a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1971.

During his outstanding career, he published more than 75 papers in refereed journals and made over 100 contributions to American Physical Society meetings and international topical conferences, later published as abstracts or conference proceedings.

Many of his graduate students and postdoctoral research associates have gone on to distinguished careers all over the world.

Throughout his career, Daehnick served as a consultant or visiting researcher at many national and international research organizations and corporations. These include the Institute for Atomic Physics, Bucharest; the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen; the National Science Foundation (NSF); Los Alamos National Laboratory; the University of Birmingham, U.K.; Nuclear Research and Development, Inc., and Nuclear Diodes, Inc.

During 1973-1974 he was visiting professor at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, in Heidelberg, Germany.

He also served as a member or chairperson of a number of scientific committees, panels and boards, including membership on the National Science Foundation Advisory Committee for Physics; chairperson, NSF Subcommittee for the Review of Nuclear Science, and director, Board of Ben Franklin Technology Center of Western Pa.

Daehnick resided in Allison Park. He is survived by his wife, Claire; his sons, Christian C. and Michael J. Daehnick; his daughter, Karen Poirier; his grandchildren, Logan and Carly Daehnick and Caroline Poirier, and his brother, Horst J. Daehnick.

A memorial service will be held at Heinz Chapel on Feb. 21 at 3 p.m.

—Peter Hart