Joseph Gustav Hirschberg ’43

Joseph Gustav Hirschberg ’43 died March 27 at his home in Miami. At Dartmouth he majored in physics and graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He was a member of the Dartmouth Players, Prokofiev Society, Cabin & Trail and Handel Society and on the staff of the Dartmouth Broadcasting System. He was also president of the Camera Club. During the war Joe was a weatherman in northern Europe with the Air Force (1943-47). During this period he met Ginette Tetard. They were married in 1947. Joe received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Wisconsin in 1951, followed by a Fulbright fellowship at École Normale Supérieure in Paris. He then became a research associate in spectroscopy at the University of Wisconsin until 1957, when he became head of the optical group of Project Matterhorn at Princeton. In 1965 he joined the physics department of the University of Miami as department chair. Seven years later Joe became director of the laboratory in optics and astrophysics at the University of Miami. A lover of the outdoors, Joe was a world traveler into his 80s. He only missed one continent—Antarctica. His many papers, book chapters, reports and patents record his research accomplishments. At the time of his retirement from the University of Miami he was also senior scientist of X-Ray Laser Inc. in Princeton, New Jersey. He is survived by his second wife, Judith; children Dorothy, Joseph, Anne and Lynn and their spouses; stepchildren Lori and Alan; 12 grandchildren and many great-grandchildren.