Werner Wolf, the Raymond J. Wean Professor Emeritus of Applied Physics at the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science, a condensed matter physicist who was a major figure in Yale's engineering community at a critical time in its history, died on Sep. 16 after a long illness. He was 95.
A major figure in the development of the modern understanding of magnetic phenomena, he joined the Yale faculty in 1963, accepting a position in the newly created Department of Engineering and Applied Science (which is now its own school) and the Department of Physics (which is now part of Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences).
As a condensed matter physicist, Wolf represented a field of study which at the time had little representation at Yale. Thomas Appelquist, the Eugene Higgins professor of Physics, remembered how Wolf relished stressing the importance of the field, including during one amusing "show and tell" presentation during a faculty meeting in which he demonstrated that a year's stack of the journal Physical Review B (the trusted journal for significant developments in condensed matter physics) was much taller than corresponding stacks of the Physical Review C (the journal on experimental and nuclear physics) or the Physical Review D (the journal for developments in high energy physics).
Wolf's major research was on magnetic materials, including many rare earth compounds whose properties are only observable at low temperatures. He retired from the faculty in 2001. Wolf published more than 150 papers about magnetic properties, including a theoretical paper that has been cited more than 1,500 times. The kind of fundamental research done by his lab on magnetic materials has been widely used by industry for practical applications, including in electric motors, radar components, computer storage, cell phones, and medical YAG lasers.
The physicist Robert K. Birgeneau, Wolf's first graduate student who went on to become chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, said he made "profound contributions" to the field.
In a talk Wolf delivered as part of the Henry Koerner Center of Emeritus Faculty's "Intellectual Trajectory" program, he reminisced about his original lab space at Yale, before the construction of what is now the Becton Engineering and Applied Science.
"The only space available," he wrote, "was a huge, almost empty hall at the back of Hammond Metallurgical Lab in Mansfield Street, where the School of Art now has its sculpture studios. The only items in that hall at that time were a large 5-inch naval gun and a small anti-aircraft gun, - left over from a World War II training facility." He and his lab, he remembered, were very happy and productive there before Becton was completed in 1970 and they were able to move to a more modern space.
Werner Wolf was born in Vienna, Austria. His father was a dealer in rare postage stamps. The family lived a comfortable middle-class life until the Anschluss, the forced annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany, in 1938, when they were able to leave for England.
In England, Wolf was educated in public schools and won a scholarship to New College, Oxford where he read physics and received his D.Phil. working with the physics scholar A.H. Cooke at the Clarendon Laboratory. His wife Elizabeth (Liz) was a fellow graduate student in physics, and it was her initial interest in the United States that led them to consider moving here and eventually led to Wolf accepting a position at Yale.
Wolf's first years at Yale were devoted entirely to research. But beginning in the 1970s, by a series of quirks of fate, and because of his own administrative gifts, his role transformed into that of a go-to administrator and educator.
He was first named director of graduate studies in engineering and applied science. Later he was appointed chair of engineering and applied science at a moment when chemical, electrical, mechanical, and other applied sciences were all in one department, making agreements on many matters challenging.
Faced with what many faculty agreed were extremely difficult structural challenges, Wolf proposed and brought to fruition a new structure in which each area had its own program and its own chair, with each of those chairs joining to form their own committee to adjudicate matters and advise the university president. Under the new structure, Wolf himself assumed the role of chairman of applied physics, and later became chair of the greater council, heading the four departments.
At a time when the place of engineering at the university was uncertain, Wolf established himself as a liaison between the faculty and senior administrators, and he remained a fervent advocate, supporter, backer, partisan, and promoter of engineering at Yale.
In 1994, following a period when the dissolution of engineering entirely was considered, Yale President Richard C. Levin appointed D. Allan Bromley, then scientific advisor to President George H.W. Bush, as dean of the faculty of engineering, signaling the university's commitment to engineering. As dean, Bromley appointed Wolf as the director of educational affairs in what was now called the Faculty of Engineering.
Wolf, who had been a devoted mentor to dozens of graduate students, taught physics to Yale undergraduates, created a course for non-majors called "Perspectives on Technology," and brought science demonstrations to New Haven high schools, was a logical choice for the role, colleagues say.
In 2008 the Yale Corporation approved the creation of the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science. Gary Haller, the Henry Prentiss Becton Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Applied Science, credits Wolf as "the most critical actor in the process that re-established engineering as the Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science that we have today."
Throughout his career, Wolf navigated between two attractions: to fundamental science on the one hand and to engineering on the other. He once said that he had "the life of a physical scientist, one who started as a 'pure' physicist and ended up as an engineer." He later said that he had discovered the difference between them.
"In both science and engineering," he wrote, "you follow some ideas to find out what happens when you try to do something new. But in engineering you first have to set a specific goal. In engineering you must design an approach to get there, whereas in science you need to let the results dictate the next step. Both can be valid academic activities, but there is a big difference in how these activities can be perceived."
Although during his research career he was a fundamental scientist, Wolf understood and appreciated the practical aspects of all such work and always was the champion of the applied as well as the fundamental "academic" research, refusing to value one over the other.
Wolf always made the point that his education in England was narrowly confined to scientific subjects. For him the main attraction of a university community was that it allowed him to be in touch with many in areas other than his own, especially since he had broad interests and over time became broadly learned. He knew and loved classical music, was interested in art and architecture, and was an oenophile with an interest in cheeses. In his last years he was a devoted member of the Koerner Center where he was able to meet and engage with faculty from across the university and delight in learning from them and in their companionship.
Wolf is survived by his wife of 71 years, Liz; his sister, Brigitte Lankenau; two grandchildren, Jeremy and Eleanor Wolf; and his daughter-in-law, Robin Wolf. He was predeceased by his son, Peter. His daughter, Mary-Anne, died soon after his death. A funeral and memorial services will be held privately.
