Alan Burgess

Alan Burgess during his retirement celebrations, held in Cambridge, July 2001, with his grandson and the book he received as a present.

It is with great sadness that I inform you of the sudden death of Alan Burgess. He died unexpectedly, in his sleep, at home, on the 27th of July 2011 having spent Boxing Day with his family.

Alan Burgess was a superb physicist and an excellent teacher. He carried out some fundamental calculations on di-electronic recombination while a post-doc at UCL, in Prof Mike Seaton's group. These calculations related directly to our knowledge and understanding of the high temperature of the solar corona. He was well known by many in the solar physics community, particularly during the 1980's when we had the 'QUACS' meetings. The Burgess and Tully assessment method has been fundamental to the data storage in CHIANTI.

Until his retirement, Alan was head of the Atomic and Astro-physics group at DAMTP, University of Cambridge. He was an inspiration and mentor to many research students, who are now leaders in their research fields. He was also held in great affection and respect by those colleagues who knew him and worked with him.

Our thoughts are with his family at this time of deep sadness.

Helen Mason