ELIHU ABRAHAMS

ABRAHAMS--Elihu. 91, a theoretical physicist specializing in condensed matter, died in Los Angeles, CA on October 18, 2018. Born in Port Henry, NY, he grew up in Manhattan, attending the Walden School and Brooklyn Tech. He enrolled in the wartime Naval Studies program at UC Berkeley, staying on for a PhD in Physics in 1952. At Berkeley he met Geulah Greenblatt, the modern dancer. She followed him to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in 1953, where they married. In 1956 he became a professor at Rutgers University. He retired from Rutgers as Bernard Serin Professor of Physics and Astronomy, emeritus, and joined the UCLA physics department in 2009. Abrahams was considered a pioneer in the theoretical foundations of disordered and interacting systems. In September he learned that he had been awarded the 2019 Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize from the American Physical Society "for pioneering research in the physics of disordered materials and hopping conductivity." Geulah Abrahams died in 1996. Survivors include son David and daughter-in-law Luann of San Jose, son Jonathan and daughter-in-law Michelle of Los Angeles, and three grandchildren. Memorial events are planned at the Aspen Center for Physics this summer and at Rutgers in the fall.