The Memorial of Moises Levy

Moises Levy, the leader and mover of the metamorphosis of the IEEE Technical Committee on Superconductivity to the present IEEE Council on Superconductivity, died on November 15, 2023. He was 93. He is survived by his wife, Nina.

Moises was a highly recognized and admired physicist whose main scientific impact was in ultrasonic measurements of metals, alloys, and superconducting materials. He was born in Concepcion, Panama, on April 8, 1930. Following a family move to California, Levy attended UCLA for a year and then transferred to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he received his BS. He was drafted into the US Army and returned to UCLA after that service, receiving his PhD in 1963. His thesis topic was “Superconducting Energy Gap of Ta, V, and Nb.” Following several post-docs, he obtained a tenured Professorship at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Moises continued studying ultrasonic properties in superconductors, including high-Tc superconductors, for decades. He was supported at UW-Milwaukee by Max Swerdlow of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. Levy stayed at UW-Milwaukee for over 30 years, where he mentored over 20 graduate students and retired as Professor Emeritus in 1996.

Levy’s academic honors include:

• Fellow of the American Physical Society
• Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
• Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America
• Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Ultrasonics Society
• IEEE UFFC-S Distinguished Service Award (2010)
• IEEE CSC Max Swerdlow Award (2010) 
• IEEE UFFC-S Rayleigh Award, (2013)

Moises Levy and the IEEE Council on Superconductivity

After several years of publishing the peer reviewed papers from the Applied Superconductivity Conference in the IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, forces within the IEEE moved those papers to a new journal, the IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. The administrative center for this activity was the IEEE Technical Committee on Superconductivity. This committee had little standing or representative positions within the IEEE Societies and Councils. Moises Levy led and organized a two-year campaign to have the Superconductivity Committee become an IEEE Council. He then led the Council for over seven years, from 1996 to 2005. During his leadership tenure, the Council on Superconductivity initiated the following awards for long-term scientific and leadership achievement: The Award for Continuing and Significant Contributions in the Field of Applied Superconductivity in materials, large-scale applications, and electronics (The award for materials was later named the James Wong Award).  The Max Swerdlow Award for Sustained Service to the Applied Superconductivity Community, and The Carl H. Rosner Entrepreneurship Award.

In addition, under his leadership, the Council also established other annual awards: the Van Duzer Prize for the best paper published in IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. The Council also awards several fellowships to full-time graduate students pursuing a Ph.D. or equivalent in the tenure in the area of applied superconductivity.

Levy also initiated support for graduate students to attend the Applied Superconductivity Conference by having the Council provide matching travel grants.

His colleagues at the IEEE Council on Superconductivity miss his mentorship and leadership, his sense of style and humor, and especially his love of scotch whiskey, good food, and great company.