David S. Saxon (February 8, 1920 – December 8, 2005) was an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

and educator who served as the President of

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

system as well as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

Corporation. Saxon was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. He attended MIT where he earned a B.S. degree in 1941 and Ph.D. in 1944, both in Physics. He worked in MIT's famed wartime

Radiation Laboratory The Radiation Laboratory, commonly called the Rad Lab, was a microwave and radar research laboratory located at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It was first created in October 1940 and operated until 31 ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Saxon joined

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...

in 1947, but was dismissed in 1950 with thirty other faculty members because of their objection to signing an oath of loyalty and declaration that they were not

Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

members. The

California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sac ...

later invalidated this requirement and Saxon returned to UCLA in 1952. While at UCLA, Saxon was a dean, vice chancellor, and executive vice chancellor. He served as the president of

between 1975 and 1983. Saxon joined the MIT Corporation in 1977 and held the office of Chairman between 1983 and 1990. Saxon was a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

and a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

, American Physical Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The Woods-Saxon potential in nuclear physics is named partly after him. Saxon was married to his wife, Shirley, for 65 years and had six daughters and six grandchildren.

Books

Notes

References

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External links

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David Saxon Lectures at UCLA
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Photographs of David Saxon from the UC Santa Cruz Library's Digital Collections
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saxon, David 1920 births 2005 deaths Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty MIT Department of Physics alumni University of California regents Presidents of the University of California System People from Saint Paul, Minnesota University of California, Los Angeles faculty People from Cheltenham, Pennsylvania Members of the American Philosophical Society 20th-century American academics