University Times

Long-time physics faculty member Richard M. “Dick” Drisko died March 12, 2011. He was 85.

After receiving his Doctor of Science degree from then-Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1955, Drisko worked as a consultant and staff physicist at Westinghouse Electric Corp., then joined the Pitt faculty in the Department of Physics and Astronomy as an assistant professor in 1959.

He was promoted to associate professor in 1965. That year, Drisko left the University to work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, but maintained adjunct associate professor status and continued to consult with Pitt’s theoretical nuclear physics group.

He returned to the full-time faculty here in 1968 and was promoted to professor in 1969.

In 1983 Drisko won “Apple for the Teacher” recognition from the College of General Studies.

He retired under Pitt’s faculty early-retirement plan in 1994 as professor emeritus of physics, but continued to teach until 2000.

A specialist in theoretical physics, Drisko was widely published in the area of nuclear physics and is credited with developing computer programs that aided in the analysis of nuclear reactions.

He was a member of the American Physical Society and four honorary fraternities.

Drisko grew up in Oklahoma City and was a veteran of World War II, serving in the U.S. Army in Europe and the Philippines, 1945-46.

Colleague Edward Gerjuoy, also professor emeritus of physics, recalled, “When Dick came to Pitt he was working on some problems that were interesting to me and so we got to know each other — in fact, he shared the desk in my office at one point and when he was slow writing up his research, I then could bother him about writing it up faster.”

When Drisko returned to Pitt from Oak Ridge, he moved away from research into teaching, Gerjuoy remembered. “In the early years, he was working with computer programs in nuclear physics, but the field was growing so fast he had a hard time keeping up in terms of publishing. After he came back, though, he developed quite a reputation as a good teacher, particularly teaching undergraduates. He really enjoyed that and that was really what he was known for.”

Drisko is survived by his children, C.R. Nobe, Carl Drisko, Robert Drisko and Matthew Drisko; his grandchildren, Jasper, Arielle, Emma, Erika, Ashley, Erin and Jared, and four great-grandchildren.

—Peter Hart