JLab Mourns Loss of Dr. Brad Tippens, Dept. of Energy (A Message from Dr. Timothy Hallman, DOE)

The Passing of Dr. William Bradford Tippens – A Message from Dr. Timothy Hallman

Dear Colleague:

We are deeply saddened to inform you of the passing of Dr. William Bradford (Brad) Tippens in the early morning of March 15, 2011.  Since 2000, Brad had served as the Program Manager for the Medium Energy Program in the Office of Nuclear Physics of the DOE Office of Science. 

Brad received his Ph.D. degree from Texas A&M University in 1984 in nuclear physics, working on a series of polarized nucleon-nucleon experiments for his doctoral dissertation.

Following receipt of his doctorate, Brad was a research associate at the University of Virginia; while there he was involved in the MEGA experiment and the TRIPLE collaboration at Los Alamos National Laboratory.  In 1989, he accepted a research physicist position at the University of California, Los Angeles. In this position he had responsibility for the design, presentation,
mounting, and execution of two experimental programs at the Alternating Gradient Synchrotron at Brookhaven National Laboratory. The first of these two programs involved a precision test of charge symmetry and the production of the eta particle.  The second was an ambitious program in baryon spectroscopy using the Crystal Ball detector.  These scientific activities resulted in a number of journal publications, and contributions to conference proceedings.

In 2000, Brad joined the Nuclear Physics Division in what was then the Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, where he assumed the position of Program Manager for the Medium Energy Program.  Brad was a tireless supporter of his program, which he held to the highest
standards as those in the program know well.

Among his many accomplishments were  the management of the 6 GeV research program
and the developing 12 GeV program at Jefferson Laboratory, initiation of the program to measure the spin components of the proton at Brookhaven National Laboratory, and support of other important efforts including a Drell-Yan experiment and a neutrino oscillation experiment at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, atom trapping development aimed towards an atomic electric dipole moment measurement, the physics program with the BLAST detector at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bates facility, and experiments at several European laboratories.
He administered approximately 45 university grants, large and small, with a strong vision to help researchers, and especially students, accomplish important science.  Within the DOE, he took on a number of additional responsibilities, including management of the Nuclear Physics Outstanding Junior Investigator program, serving as the point-of-contact for education matters for Nuclear Physics, and taking part in the early efforts to modernize electronic workflow within the Office of Science.

Brad made his home near Columbia, Maryland.  He is survived by his wife, Tabitha, and three sons, Jonathan, Nathaniel, and Daniel. Funeral plans are pending.

Brad will be greatly missed by those in the Office of Nuclear Physics.