from Haixin H. at BNL

Haixin is a physicist who worked closely with Leif in the Collider Accelerator Department at BNL.

As I am leaving to Vancouver tomorrow, I recall that my first PAC conference after joining BNL was to Vancouver in 1997. Leif also attended that one.  At Vancouver, I learned that Leif loved to ski. From the conference site, we could see far away the mountains capped with snows, even in the middle of May. He told me he went to ski during break and said it was a good experience to ski in May. We stayed in the same hotel, Park Hotel, which was about 15 minutes walk to the conference hotel. I didn’t know that until one day I noticed he was using the pen from that hotel. I told him I was also staying in that hotel and complained that it was too far from the conference site. He said he liked the hotel. The distance was fine and he enjoyed the walk every day. From that time, I knew he loved to exercise and was very energetic.

My first meeting with Leif was in Chicago, in 1991. At that time, I was a graduate student, and just chose the AGS partial Siberian Snake experiment as my thesis subject and went to Chicago to attend the collaboration meeting. I still remember we met in front of a hotel with September sunshine. My professor S.Y. Lee (who used to work at BNL, too) introduced me to a a group scientists from BNL. I shook hands with everyone, and I remember Leif gave me a big smile and warm welcome. I knew Leif for more than 20 years from that point.

When I joined BNL after my PhD, we were in the accelerator physics group all the time. Later (probably around 2007), we were in the same sub-group, called the injector group, and he was my supervisor until his retirement. We worked together for those many years in various subjects. He was a very rigorous person on drawing conclusions. That is quite unique for him. He would draw his conclusion carefully. I learned a lot from him with numerous examples how to justify the conclusions from the experiment results.

In the sub-group, we developed a close relationship. We often discussed topics such as kids' educations and his hobbies. After his retirement, he still came to lab regularly twice a week. We continued to discuss the physics topics with mutual interests. Specifically, he continued to  look at the issues related to polarized proton operation, which is a quite subtle subject. He also share with me his hobby as a carpenter, and I could tell he was vary happy with his work related to that. After he recovered from the accident,* he came to our SPIN meeting again and showed great interest in what we were doing.

Leif will definitely be missed.

*Haixin is referring to Leif's fall and head injury (TBI) in March 2016.