David B. Friend 1954-2008
I was greatly saddened to learn recently of the passing of David B. Friend, from complications of Chrone's disease and cancer, on May 22, 2008, at age 54. I knew Dave from our graduate student days at the University of Colorado, from which he received his Ph. D. in 1982.
Dave's thesis on "Radiation-Driven Stellar Wind Models" was done under supervision of John Castor, with also substantial input from Dave Abbott. It made important extensions to the classic CAK model for line-driven winds, documented and extended in several key journal papers through the 80's and early 90's. His 1986 ApJ paper with Dave Abbott on rotating wind models was one of the first to document the key "finite-disk correction factor", and has nearly 300 citations. He also co-authored several pioneering papers on the role of magnetic fields on stellar winds and their effect on stellar spindown. An early (and in my opinion underappreciated) jewel is his 1983 paper with John Castor on multiline scattering, which was the first to demonstrate that the CAK mechanism is not (as is still often misperceived) fundamentally restricted to the single scattering limit.
Following his Ph.D. from Colorado, Dave worked at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Wisconsin, Williams College, and Weber State University. After becoming a professor at the University of Montana in 1990, he turned his focus toward teaching and running the local observatory, and so gradually drifted away from hot-star research. But he was a highly successful and popular teacher, winning the University of Montana Distinguished Teaching Award in 2005.
Dave is survived by his wife Diane, who is herself an accomplished astronomy educator, and by their 24-year-old son Scott.
Further information can be found at the weblink below, which contains links to a full obituary and further information on Dave's teaching activities and award.
Stan Owocki, OC Chair
IAU Working Group for Massive Stars
Weblink: http://www.physics.umt.edu/dfriend.html
Email: owocki@bartol.udel.edu