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Fred E. Nicodemus ’34

Fred Nicodemus ’34, August, 1997, in Oakland, California, after a long illness. After graduation, Fred remained at Reed as an assistant in the physics department under Professor Knowlton [A.A., 1915–48], and then followed Margaret Shaw ’36 to Boise, where he obtained work as a bank messenger. They were married in 1935. He obtained a job with the Social Security Board, Bureau of Old-Age Benefits, and worked in Boise, Honolulu, and Indianapolis for nearly 10 years. Shortly after the war, he received an offer from a former physics professor to work as an administrative assistant with the USAF Cambridge Research Laboratories, with the option to attend graduate school on company time. In 1956, another job offer took him to Sylvania Electronic Defense Labs in Mountain View, California, where he worked for 13 years on missile detection problems in infrared systems. In 1969, he moved to the Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, California, where he continued to work on military uses of infrared radiation. In 1974, he transferred to the National Bureau of Standards to become the editor of a self-study manual on optical radiation measurements, which enabled him to pursue his interest in helping develop instructional and reference materials on radiometry. He continued to work on the manual after official retirement, which was published in parts over a period of time. He was a fellow in the Optical Society of America, the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers, and other professional organizations. He is survived Margaret.

Appeared in Reed magazine: February 1998

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