Professor Emeritus of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering of UC Berkeley and former Principal Investigator of the Materials Science Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Jack Washburn (1921-2013) passed away on the 26th of October 2013 in his Berkeley home at the age of 92.

Professor Washburn was born in Mt Vernon, New York; grew up in Alta Dena, CA and raised his family in Berkeley. During his PhD study at UC Berkeley, he served in the US Navy in the World War II. He returned to Berkeley after the war to continue his work in engineering, obtaining a PhD degree in 1954. He joined UC Berkeley as a faculty at the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and piloted research in materials properties, dislocations, and ion implantation semiconductors. He pioneered on the application of the transmission electron microscopy of dislocations in semiconductor materials.  Among many other awards, he was awarded the C H. Mathewson Gold Medal in 1956; the Berkeley Citation in 1996.  He has brought up many students through his career at Berkeley, and remembered by his former colleagues and students as an excellent educator as well as a very modest but truly noble person.  He retired from teaching in 1981 but continued his research at the LBNL until 2002.
Jack is survived by his wife Trudy Washburn, daughters JoAnn Koplin, Melissa Washburn, son Kenneth Washburn and grandchildren Lauren Sobol, Sarah Koplin, Alex Koplin and Morgan Washburn. His family and beloved dog Spencer accompanied him till his last days.