Gerhart Friedlander

Gerhart Friedlander, 93, a senior chemist emeritus at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), died on Sept. 6, 2009.

Stripped of his citizenship and prohibited from university study because he was Jewish, Friedlander left his native Germany in 1936 and immigrated to the U.S. He received a Ph.D. degree in nuclear chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1942.

He worked as an instructor at the University of Idaho for one year before he was recruited to work on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he stayed from 1943 to 1946. After a stint at General Electric Research Laboratory, he joined BNL as a chemist in 1948. Friedlander was named a senior chemist in 1952 and served as chair of BNL’s Chemistry Department from 1968 to 1977. He retired in 1981 but remained active in research.

Friedlander led research in high-energy nuclear reactions at BNL’s Cosmotron accelerator. He also helped develop the computerized Monte Carlo calculations of nuclear reaction mechanisms, helping formulate theoretical models that are still used today.

Friedlander coauthored the textbook “Nuclear and Radiochemistry” and was editor-in-chief of Science Spectra.

He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was an honorary member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and an emeritus member of ACS, joining in 1958. Friedlander received ACS’s Glenn T. Seaborg Award for Nuclear Chemistry and the Humboldt Research Award. He also received awards for his service to many organizations, including Planned Parenthood.

Friedlander is survived by his wife of 28 years, Barbara Strongin; two daughters, Ruth Huart and Joan Hurley; four stepchildren, William Strongin, Stacey Strongin Blaney, Ronni Mordechai-Strongin, and David Strongin; four grandchildren; six step-grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. His first wife, Gertrude, predeceased him.