Felix Smith

1920 - 2018

Felix Teisseire Smith, Jr.

August 19, 1920–October 15, 2018

At the venerable age of 98, Felix Teisseire Smith, Jr., J.D., Ph.D., passed away in the early morning hours of Monday, October 15th, after a brief hospital stay. Dr. Smith was a third-generation San Franciscan, born to Felix T. Smith, Sr. and Martha Smith (née Sutton) in the Cow Hollow neighborhood. He attended the Thacher School, Williams College, Harvard Law School, and Harvard Graduate School where he earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. He served during World War Two in Washington D.C. for the U.S. Navy and briefly practiced law. His primary career for many decades was as a research scientist for the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) in Palo Alto, specializing in low-energy collisions and the theory behind the Virial Equation. Dr. Smith retired in the 1980s to San Francisco. He was active in Berkeley's Pacific Center, the San Francisco Hiking Club, the Palo Alto Madrigal Chorus (for which he sang bass), the S. F. Pride Safety Subcommittee, and the Transactional Analysis community. Felix continued also to do research, publishing a paper on Symmetric Special Relativity in the journal of the Institut Louis de Broglie. He is survived by his husband Frederick Teti and by his brothers Nathan and Lawrence and their families. Felix will be remembered for his brilliance and his rigid adherence to a strict personal code of ethics. In lieu of flowers and gifts, please consider donating to the S.F. Hiking Club, the A.C.L.U, Amnesty International, or other worthy social justice organizations.