WILLIAM RAMSAY

WILLIAM C. RAMSAY  
Physicist, Writer and Composer  Died on Tuesday, November 8, 2016 in Washington, DC. Born on November 6, 1930 in New York City, he earned the BA at University of Colorado, Boulder, and the MA and PhD in physics at UCLA. He taught physics at University of California, Santa Barbara then served as a technical manager at Systems Associates in California. He worked at the Atomic Energy Commission as a senior environmental economist, and as a technical adviser to the National Regulatory Commission. Dr. Ramsay served as a senior fellow at Resources for the Future, where he carried out research on energy issues in the developing world especially Africa and Latin America; he became project manager for a major AID funded program of energy-economic studies. At the National Academy of Science he served as a senior staff officer on the Energy Engineering Board. He was the author of a number of books on energy, including: Managing The Environment, Unpaid Costs of Electrical Energy, Energy In America's Future, Household Energy and the Poor in the Developing World, Energy Strategies for Developing Nations, Fuelwood In Urban Markets, and Bioenergy and Economic Development. As an independent consultant, he continued working on energy related issues, but also founded one of the earliest internet literary journals. Dr. Ramsay has written a number of novels and plays; his novels include: Me and Fidel and his play "Agamemnon" was performed in Washington, DC in 2000. Most recently he has focused on writing music, and his comic opera Big Brains.Com was produced in California in February 2016. He is survived by his wife, Jane Evans Ramsay; four children, Alice, John, Carol and David; five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Memorial Services will be held at Santa Barbara, CA in February.