Physicist Wolfgang "Pief" K. H. Panofsky, who co-created a historic undergraduate course at Stanford that gave rise to CISAC, remained an important contributor to the center's research until his death on Sept. 24.

In 1970 Panofsky, then director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, joined John Barton, a Stanford Law School professor, and John Lewis, a political science professor, in creating the undergraduate course, Arms Control and Disarmament, to which CISAC traces its origin. The course, which continues today as International Security in a Changing World, taught students about how international security policy is made and illuminated the dangers of a possible nuclear war.

"We have lost a close and revered colleague in Pief Panofksy," said CISAC co-director Scott Sagan. "Without Pief, John Barton, and John Lewis, the center would not have been created when it was, through the course on arms control and international security. And his continued involvement with CISAC over the years enriched our research immeasurably."

A few days before he passed away, Panofsky attended a Stanford workshop, held at CISAC Sept. 19-21, to examine the security implications of increased global reliance on nuclear power. Dean Wilkening, CISAC senior research scientist, said that as the workshop concluded, Panofsky left the group of 40 experts with the reminder that events in the next few decades could have a dramatic impact on the expansion of nuclear power.

He referred to events such as "regime change in states with uranium enrichment or plutonium reprocessing facilities, the discovery of inventory discrepancies within the nuclear fuel cycle where significant quantities of fissile material are unaccounted for, and intercepts of illicit trafficking of a significant quantity of fissile material," Wilkening said, a list Michael May, former CISAC co-director, dubbed "Pief's 'black swans,'" hugely significant but hard-to-predict events.

Wilkening said Panofsky called him on Sept. 23 and volunteered to write up his thoughts on the subject "because he 'had some free time.'"

The workshop was the most recent example of Panofsky's many contributions to CISAC's research and of his dedication to arms control and global security.

"As those who knew him know, Pief was a man of boundless energy and clear thought," Wilkening said. "Pief's passing is a great loss, but his memory serves to inspire many of us to work tirelessly toward those aspirations to which we are truly committed."