[ASA] Vale Jim Caswell

[Andrew Hopkins]

Dear ASA members,

     Many members will already have heard that Jim Caswell passed away last 
week. Simon
Johnston and Jessica Chapman have kindly provided the message below, for the
benefit of the Society.

It is with great sadness that we note the passing of Dr James (Jim) Leslie 
Caswell on 14 January 2015 in Sydney.

Jim was born in England in 1940 and after completing high school in Thornbury 
went to St John's College, Cambridge where he obtained his undergraduate 
degree in 1962. He subsequently joined the radiophysics group of Prof Sir 
Martin Ryle at the Cavendish Lab in Cambridge where he was awarded his PhD in 
1967 for "Astronomy studies using a large-aperture synthesis radio telescope 
operating at 178 MHz".

He was awarded a Canadian Research Council fellowship and took up at postdoc 
at the DRAO in Penticton, Canada from 1967 to 1969. He subsequently moved to 
Sydney and started at the (then) CSIRO Division of Radiophysics (now CSIRO 
Astronomy and Space Science) on 6 January 1970. Jim has remained at the CSIRO 
since then, apart from a sabbatical back in Cambridge, UK in 1976 and a 2 year 
sabbatical at the DRAO, Penticton in 1983/84. Although Jim retired several 
years ago he continued his highly productive research career at CASS right up 
to his admission in hospital shortly before he died.

Jim has more than 200 papers in the refereed literature dating back to his 
first paper (published in Nature!) in 1965. His two most highly cited papers 
are well known to all Galactic astronomers. Clark & Caswell (1976) used 
Molonglo and Parkes observations to map and study the properties of southern 
Supernova Remnants, including a derivation of their distances and Caswell & 
Haynes (1987) lists properties of over 300 Galactic HII regions and is a 
handbook for anyone interested in Galactic structure.

Jim made significant contributions to the Australia Telescope National 
Facility including during the construction of the Compact Array (ATCA) and 
recently as Project Scientist for the CABB upgrade on the ATCA. Jim's 
scientific passion was masers and Galactic structure and indeed some 90 of his 
papers have "maser" in the title. Most recently, he was a leader of the Parkes 
Methanol Multibeam (MMB) survey and subsequent follow up with ATCA, which 
discovered hundreds of methanol masers associated with high-mass star forming 
regions. The sequence of papers arising from the MMB are typical of Jim's 
output defined by scientific excellence, integrity, attention to detail and 
not a comma out of place or dangling participle to be seen!

Jim was, at his core, a research scientist whose passion was solving problems 
and understanding the Universe. He was always a loyal and kind-hearted 
colleague, encouraging to others and a patient teacher and mentor. Away from 
his science, Jim was a long time member of ATNF's social tennis and ping-pong 
groups.

Jim has been a member of the ASA since 1976 and was a member of the ASA 
Council between 1980 and 1982. Jim is survived by his wife Sheena and three 
children.

Jim will be sorely missed by his colleagues and friends.

Simon Johnston and Jessica Chapman, CASS.

-- 
A. Prof. Andrew Hopkins, Head of Research and Outreach
Australian Astronomical Observatory
P.O. Box 915, North Ryde, NSW 1670, Australia
ph: +61 2 9372 4849  fax: +61 2 9372 4880