Former Faculty: ROGER FREDERICK DASHEN

Faculty, Particle Physics, School of Natural Sciences, July 1969–June 1987; Member, Particle Physics, School of Natural Sciences, January 1966–June 1969

  • * PhD: California Institute of Technology, 1964
  • * Born: May 5, 1938 in Grand Junction, Colorado; Deceased: May 25, 1995

Career Highlights:1

  • * Dashen played a leading role in the development of our modern understanding of symmetries in quantum field theory.
  • * As a graduate student and young postdoc at Caltech, Dashen was a major player in the struggles to convert the new ideas of SU(3) symmetry and current algebras into a dynamical theory of hadrons.
  • * In the late sixties and early seventies, Dashen made major contributions to the theory of chiral symmetry in the strong interactions.
  • * In the mid-seventies, together with Brosl Hasslacher and André Neveu, Dashen developed the quantum theory of solitons using the path integral approach.
  • * In the early eighties, Dashen turned his attention to the lattice approach to solving gauge theories.
  • * At the time of his death in 1995, Dashen was working with Elizabeth Jenkins and Aneesh Manohar on applying the 1/Nc expansion of QCD to understanding the static properties of hadrons.
  • * He was active in the establishment of the National Science Foundation's Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Awards/Prizes include:

  • * Elected to the National Academy of Sciences

1excerpts from his University of California, San Diego on-line obituary