Neil’s family will be holding a memorial service for him at 3:30 pm on Friday, March 10, in the Memorial Chapel at the University of Maryland at College Park, here the map for the service.
The family will be pleased to see those of you who are able to attend in person, and will have all of his friends and colleagues in their thoughts on the day.
Name: Christoph Winkler
From: Noordwijk, The Netherlands
E-mail: Contact
I am shocked by the sudden passing of Neil. Throughout my entire professional life, I had the privilege of working together with Neil. In the beginning on Compton-GRO, most of the time, however, on INTEGRAL.
With his profound scientific knowledge and his experience managing complex space science projects, Neil provided invaluable support to the design and development of the INTEGRAL observatory mission from the first day onwards. Nuclear spectroscopy with GRIS and NAE, technology development of high-resolution Germanium detectors and his experience as Project Scientist of NASA's Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory were key contributions to the development of the INTEGRAL observatory mission.
Neil served as a member of the ESA science study teams during the early Assessment Phase in 1990/91 and during the Phase A 1992/1993. After selection of the INTEGRAL mission by ESA in 1993, he was appointed Mission Scientist, representing NASA and the US high-energy astrophysics community, as early as 1995. From that point onwards, he continuously served, for more than 20 years, as a member of the INTEGRAL Science Working Team, which became later the INTEGRAL Users Group.
Among the various tasks which were taken up by Neil was the creation and maintenance of the INTEGRAL US Guest Observer Facility established at HEASARC/GSFC and his key contributions during the design and development of the Core Observing Programme of the INTEGRAL Mission.
Neil's ideas, scientific advice, contributions and critical reviews through all phases of the mission development, were of great value and importance for the mission.
I will miss Neil, his kindness and expertise. A very dear colleague and a great high-energy astrophysicist.