In Memoriam: Emeritus Professor Phil Jones

Publication date: Thu, Jun 01, 2017 - 2:00pm

We regret to announce the death of Emeritus Professor Phillips Russell Jones, who passed away Thursday, May 4, 2017, at Cooley Dickinson Hospital. Born on August 25, 1930, in Troy, New York, Phil graduated from Sanderson Academy, in Ashfield in 1947 and received a Bachelors degree in Physics from UMass, in 1951. He served in the U.S. Army as an Instructor in the Radiological Defense Branch of the Chemical Core School at Ft. McClellan in Alabama from 1952 to 1954 and earned Masters and PhD degrees in physics from the University of Connecticut in 1958.

Phil joined the UMass Physics Department as an Assistant Professor in 1958, before the department had a Ph.D. Program, and continued at UMass until his retirement as Professor in 1993. He was respected as a researcher, teacher and a steady and dedicated departmental citizen. In many ways, his presence in the Physics Department was a harbinger of things to come. His work on electron scattering in Atomic Physics, conducted in the basement of the original Hasbrouck Laboratory, was one of the first of the NSF-funded modern research programs in the department.

A Memorial is scheduled for June 3, at Lord Jeffrey Inn 30 Boltwood Ave., Amherst, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the ballroom. His obituary can be found here.