Hal-9001's Journal: In Memoriam: Prof. Emmett Leith (1927 - 2005)

Last week I lost a wonderful mentor and friend, Prof. Emmett Leith. Prof. Leith was my research advisor and was going to be my dissertation committee chair in the PhD program in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan. Among academics, Prof. Leith is known for making holograms useful and ubiquitous by inventing the off-axis method of recording holograms--one could make a strong case that the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics, in addition to being awarded to Dennis Gabor for the invention of holography, should have been shared with Prof. Leith, Juris Upatnieks, and Yuri Denisyuk. Among those who met him--family, friends, students, and colleagues--he was known as a wonderful man. I feel extraordinarily privileged to have had the opportunity to work with and learn from Prof. Leith.