Alan M. Chodorow

Alan Chodorow passed away in his Albuquerque home on January 9, 2024, at the age of 87.  He was born in Buffalo, NY in 1936, son of David and Janet, and brother to May.  He lived in Auburn, NY, a town with far more cows than people until he left for the US Naval Academy, graduating in 1958. Alan was awarded the Ensign Watson prize for the student most proficient in Naval Engineering and put those skills to use in the submarine corps under the formidable Admiral Rickover. 

While stationed in California in 1963, Alan met the love of his life, Diane, marrying in 1964.  In 1966, Alan resigned from the Navy at the rank of Commander, joined the Naval Reserves, and began a PhD in engineering and physics at UNM.  In his dissertation, Alan wrote eloquently about intensive relativistic charged particle beam transport phenomena in a vacuum, a near miss for the New York Times best-seller list. During his studies, Alan and Diane had two children, Gary and Darrell.  After receiving his PhD in 1972, Alan worked for the national labs and Mission Research Corp.  He did ground-breaking research on electromagnetic pulse and many other topics he could not discuss and his family probably would not have understood anyway.  Among Alan’s greatest accomplishment was a 2^nd place finish at the 1985 NM Dart Association’s Monday night Division B Fall League tournament. 

Alan had many loves in his life: Diane, his family, his country, physics and math, the Jewish community, and tennis.  He pursued all of them with gusto. 

Alan was buried at Fairview Memorial Park on January 11, 2024.  He is survived by his wife of 60 years, their son Gary and his wife Xiaodong, their son Darrell and his wife Helaine, and three grandchildren, Sam, Daniel, and Jacob.  We will miss him.