High-energy theorist and physics educator LeRoy Franklin Cook Jr, professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, died peacefully at his home in Amherst on 6 January 2005. The cause of death was metastatic melanoma.
Born in Ashland, Kentucky, on 12 December 1931, Roy, as he preferred to be called, grew up in Long Beach, California. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, and earned his BS in physics there in 1953. Following two years of service in the US Army at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where he worked on missile flight tracking, he returned to Berkeley and received his MS in physics in 1957 and PhD in 1959. His doctoral dissertation, “Multiple Meson Production in Nucleon–Anti-Nucleon Annihilations and Polarization Effects in Cascade Showers,” was done under the supervision of Joseph V. Lepore.
Roy subsequently moved to Princeton University in 1959 to become a member of the physics faculty. Six years later, he relocated to Amherst to join UMass as an associate professor of physics. He was promoted to professor in 1968 and remained on the faculty until his retirement in 2001.
At Amherst, Roy initiated an NSF-sponsored research program in high-energy theoretical physics in 1965 and expanded the program in 1967 to create a multi-investigator research effort. As head of the department of physics and astronomy for the periods 1969–75 and 1979–85, he guided the department with confidence and a steady hand through good and bad budget times. During those periods, he was heavily involved in planning a new building to house part of the department and in staffing the astronomy program. He was a well-organized and highly regarded classroom instructor, and a generation of physics graduate students took his yearlong course in quantum mechanics.
In 1968, Roy chaired the university’s curriculum study committee, whose Cook Report resulted in significant changes to the core requirements in the College of Arts and Sciences curriculum. The committee’s recommendations led to clarification of core requirements and standardization of senior honors for the fledgling honors program. Eventually, the university established an honors college.
Beginning in the early 1980s, Roy led a campaign to improve communication and interaction between UMass Amherst faculty members and regional teachers at the K–12 level. With funds from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professional Development Program and the Massachusetts Board of Regents, he worked to create lab-based opportunities for hands-on learning that teachers could export to their classrooms. In 1993, that effort led to Project Update, funded by NSF, which involved four of the five campuses in the UMass system, with Roy as the principal investigator. Project Update brought in experts to inform high-school teachers on topics of contemporary physics, offered summer workshops to teachers, and created a resource center. The program’s efforts resulted in teacher-led workshops sanctioned by the American Association of Physics Teachers.
Roy spent a number of years on the university’s systemwide management negotiating team, and is remembered for his deep understanding of and insights into employee and management issues. In 1999, he became the faculty associate to the dean of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. In that role, he conducted a thorough study of the college’s outreach activities, including the identification of issues relevant to assessment and rewards for such activities. He received the University Outstanding Service Award in 2004 at a luncheon in his honor.
Roy was active on a number of other committees. He chaired the chancellor’s lecture series committee (1976–82), which was instrumental in selecting and honoring distinguished faculty members, and was chairman of the personnel committee of the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (1989–90). Roy’s committee work wasn’t limited to UMass, though. He chaired the American Physical Society’s New England section (1990–91) and was section representative to the society’s national council (1992–93). In 1996, he was chairman of APS’s committee on education.
Following his retirement, Roy traveled and enjoyed fishing and wine, his lifelong passions. His colleagues inside and outside the university respected him for his good will, dedication, sense of responsibility, ability to get things done, and warm friendship. He showed us admirable courage, strength, and grace in the face of his medical situation. We miss him and his great enthusiasm about all things, especially his family.
