Barry Wallbank, 1949-2008
Professor Barry Wallbank was born in Warwick, England in 1949 and earned his academic credentials there, receiving a B.Sc. in Mathematics and Physics from Lanchester Polytechnic in 1970; a M.Sc. in Physics from Essex University in 1971; and his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics in 1974 from Liverpool University. Adding to his skill in theoretical physics, he excelled as an experimentalist.
He started his career as a Research Fellow in the Chemistry Department of the University of British Columbia from 1974 to 1978. Dr. Wallbank was then appointed as a Research Associate in the Physics Department of the University of Manchester in England (1978 - 1982). Manchester University was noted as one of the leading institutions in the field of electron impact spectroscopy, under the direction of Frank Reed. Based on this experience, in 1982 he was invited by Dr. A. Weingartshofer to become a Research Associate in the Laser-Electron Laboratory at St. Francis Xavier University, and later joined the StFX faculty in 1988.
Dr. Wallbank arrived at StFX at a critical time. Father Earnest Clarke had died while a major NSERC-funded restructuring of the Laser-Electron Laboratory was underway. Dr. Wallbank picked up the work and successfully designed and commissioned a new automated experimental chamber for the Laboratory. The discoveries enabled by these facilities made Dr. Wallbank known internationally for his expertise in laser assisted electron scattering from elemental and molecular gases. With the move to a new, specially designed lab space in 2004, Dr. Wallbank had transformed the Laser-Electron Laboratory into a true research showcase, capable of complex experiments that could only be carried out at StFX.
Dr. Wallbank collaborated with many other laboratories worldwide working on the fundamental physics of low energy collisions. His sabbatical years were spent at JILA at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Dr. Wallbank was looking forward to spending 2008-09 as a sabbatical year in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
Dr. Wallbank was a dedicated teacher and researcher, achieving the rank of Full Professor in 2000 and assuming the role of Chair of our Physics Department in 2005. As Chair, he devoted himself generously to the enhancement of the Physics Department's programs and was particularly attentive to the intellectual growth and general wellbeing of all the students in the program - as indeed was he of all the students whom he encountered. He also had numerous undergraduate honours students and postdoctoral fellows assisting in his research.
Dr. Wallbank and his wife, Dr. Denise Wallbank of the StFX Chemistry Department, have been an important part of the scientific and academic community of St. Francis Xavier University. They have two children, Andrew and Sarah, and a new grandchild, born this March.