Allan Blaer, beloved by all for his intellectual rigor, spectacular pedagogy, love of physics and incredible human kindness, passed away on May 28, 2026. Allan was valedictorian of the Columbia undergraduate class of 1964 and did his graduate work at Columbia under the supervision of Gian-Carlo Wick. Actually, unsatisfied with a single Ph.D. thesis, Allan in effect wrote three. One, inspired by Gian-Carlo, used the Faddeev 3-body equations to study multiparticle bound states. Another, done with Leon Lederman, was an extensive calculation of radiative corrections to an experiment that Leon had carried out. The third, published in Nuclear Physics B 83 493-514 (1974) was a pioneering application of the renormalization group to quantum field theory. Although the research for the three theses was completed by the early 1970s, the formal degrees followed later: Allan’s M. Phil was awarded in 1974 and his Ph.D. in 1977.
In 1970 Allan moved to the Princeton Physics Department, serving first as an Instructor, then as a Lecturer, then as a Research Associate. In 1977, Allan became an Assistant Professor at Swarthmore College. He returned to Columbia in 1980, first on leave from Swarthmore and then formally joining the Department in 1982.
At Columbia, Allan performed research on topics in theoretical and experimental high energy physics, condensed matter physics and astrophysics, but his main contributions were elsewhere. From 1985-2012, he was Director of Undergraduate Physics Programs and then Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Physics Department, and from 2000-2002 the Director of Graduate Studies. From 1998 to 2012, he was co-Director of the M.A. program in the Philosophical Foundations of Physics program, organized jointly with the Department of Philosophy, and from 1989 to 2012, Allan directed the Columbia Science Honors Program, which brings the very best high school students from the greater New York area to Columbia for Saturday morning courses on the frontiers of science.
From the earliest days of his career, Allan was known as an outstanding teacher and even more outstanding mentor. His graduate-level electromagnetism course, taught for many decades at multiple universities, was legendary for its intellectual rigor, scientific depth and clarity of presentation. He was beloved by undergraduates for his teaching of the introductory course sequences both for prospective majors and for non-majors. It is fitting that in 1996, Allan was selected as one of the inaugural recipients of the Columbia Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching by Faculty.
