Christopher Pratt Leavitt

Leavitt, Christopher Pratt



Dr. Christopher Pratt Leavitt passed away on November 30, 2015 at the age of 88 after a long, productive, and caring life. His last two years were spent peacefully at Casa de Rosa where their loving care is much appreciated.

He was born in the Boston area on November 20, 1927, and grew up in Wellesley Hills, MA. His happiest times as a child were when he and his brother spent summers at the beach on the New Hampshire coast and on North Haven Island off the coast of Maine. He graduated from Gamaliel Bradford High School and commuted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for college and graduate school, receiving his doctorate in Physics in 1952.

While at MIT he spent two summers at the top of Mount Evans in Colorado studying cosmic rays and it is there that he discovered his love of mountains to go along with his love of the ocean. His Ph.D work focused on mesons, which were little understood at the time.

After graduation he worked at Brookhaven National Labs on Long Island, where in addition to his work he helped organize concerts by famous chamber groups and hosted visiting scientists. He took a Nobel Prize winner Freeman Dyson out on his sailboat. Much as he loved knowing and interacting with famous physicists, he decided that lab work was too limiting and that he really wanted to teach.

The University of New Mexico appealed to him because of the mountains and the small active physics department. He moved to New Mexico in 1956, and taught at the University for 37 years, where he guided 77 Ph.D students. During much of this period, he also served as a liaison to Los Alamos Laboratories. He was most proud of his support for Fred Begay, who became the first Navajo to get his Ph.D in physics, in 1971. Fred was featured in a 1979 NOVA documentary titled "The Long Walk of Fred Young".

As a professor, Chris was known for his brilliance and for providing sympathetic support for his students that often extended well beyond academic guidance. He was an experimental physicist, always wanting to know more about the universe, while being wary of the theorists who extend their reach beyond observable scientific evidence. Chris played an important role in the early days of space research with the development of instruments for rockets and satellites, principally for the detection of high-energy neutrons. With the advent of the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility, Chris helped to found a medium energy physics group at UNM, which has become an important player in the study of hadronic physics. He later focused on the study of neutrinos, which involved work with weather balloons, satellites, and an experiment a mile deep in a mine in Idaho.

Music always played a significant role in his life. He played the piano and recorder and taught himself Andean music that he had heard on his short-wave radio. For many years he played the recorder and other instruments in an early music ensemble that played around Albuquerque in the 1980's and 1990's. He combined his love of music with physics when he taught musical acoustics, in a course that he continued to teach several years after this retirement.

After retiring, he kept up with science and the world, and his thirst for knowledge and understanding never faded. He was a born teacher and liked to explain complicated physics to anyone who was interested, and spent many of his retirement years developing physics software to help explain Einstein's theory of relativity and the theory of colors.

Two years after arriving in New Mexico he married graduate student Joyce Ann Carlson. With the exception of one year in Placitas the couple lived in the North Valley. They were blessed with five children, one of whom was diagnosed early on with autism.

The family life was at times chaotic, but he always rose to the occasion through whatever challenges life brought. He loved his children dearly and was a good, engaged, caring father and husband. He taught them about music, science, electronics and computers, as well as general lessons on a kind and caring approach to life.

He always supported Joyce with her many projects in the community, never complaining when she temporarily "adopted" adults who needed a family, when she invited South American educators to their home for meals and parties, or when she supported many others in need. He was an intelligent, generous, non-materialistic, free-thinking, and gentle man, who was loved by many.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Helen Pratt Leavitt and Richard Came Leavitt; and by his brother, Thomas Leavitt.

He is survived by his wife, Joyce Carlson-Leavitt; his children, Stephen Christopher Leavitt, Richard Carlson Leavitt, Karin Elizabeth Leavitt, Suzanne Marie Leavitt, and Jonathan Pratt Leavitt; as well by three grandchildren, Silas Leavitt, Emma Leavitt, and Jeffery Leavitt; and by his sister-in-law, Michele Leavitt.

All are grateful for the kind care he received in the final years of his life, especially by his doctors, the staff at Casa de Rosa, and the staff at Rust Presbyterian Hospital. A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, December 9, 2015, 11:00 a.m., at the Second Presbyterian Church in Albuquerque, (Edith & Lomas NE), followed by a potluck luncheon.

In lieu of flowers, feel free to give to the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Westside or the Second Presbyterian Church in Albuquerque. A memorial web-site is available at

www.beautifultribute.com/

christopher-leavitt/



Please visit our online guestbook for Christopher at

www.FrenchFunerals.com

FRENCH - University

1111 University Blvd. NE

505-843-6333