In Memoriam of Dr. Carl Baum

Dr. Carl Baum

ECE Dis­tin­guished Research Pro­fes­sor Carl Baum, men­tor to many, died Thurs­day, Dec. 2 in Albu­querque shortly after suf­fer­ing a stroke.

“Carl was an intel­lec­tual giant who shared his ideas freely and helped many in his long and dis­tin­guished career,” said the ECE depart­ment chair, Pro­fes­sor Chaouki Abdal­lah. “He will be missed by those who knew him, but his impact will be felt for many more years.”

Baum joined the Elec­tri­cal & Com­puter Engi­neer­ing Depart­ment in UNM’s School of Engi­neer­ing in August 2005 after retir­ing from the Air Force Research Lab­o­ra­tory at Kirt­land AFB. He served from 1963 to 1971 as an offi­cer in the Air Force sta­tioned at Kirt­land, and after 1971 he con­tin­ued at Kirt­land in a civil­ian capac­ity, even­tu­ally retir­ing as a senior sci­en­tist in 2005.

“Carl had a dis­tin­guished career prior to join­ing ECE,” said Abdal­lah, “but since he became affil­i­ated with us, he has given much in terms of intel­lec­tual and finan­cial sup­port to our grad­u­ate stu­dents and to the department.”

Baum col­lab­o­rated on research with ECE’s Applied Elec­tro­mag­net­ics Group. Dur­ing his long research career, he worked on mod­el­ing the inter­ac­tion of elec­tro­mag­netic fields with com­plex elec­tron­ics sys­tems, and he devel­oped a num­ber of phys­i­cal sim­u­la­tors for nuclear elec­tro­mag­netic pulse. In a career that spanned five decades, this remark­ably cre­ative engi­neer intro­duced innu­mer­able new con­cepts in math­e­mat­ics, elec­tro­mag­netic the­ory and sys­tem design, many of which remain the stan­dards of excel­lence today.

From his ear­li­est designs of elec­tro­mag­netic pulse (EMP) sen­sors and sim­u­la­tors to the lat­est devel­op­ments in high-power microwave (HPM) and ultra-wideband antenna and sys­tem design, Baum’s research was always on the fore­front of tech­nol­ogy. His advances in elec­tro­mag­net­ics the­ory have left an indeli­ble mark and a last­ing legacy on the tech­ni­cal world and have led to much of what engi­neers do today in EMP, HPM, and tar­get ID.

Con­sid­ered the world’s fore­most author­ity on tran­sient phe­nom­ena in elec­tro­mag­net­ics, his sci­en­tific con­tri­bu­tions were prodi­gious. He wrote innu­mer­able tech­ni­cal notes, arti­cles, books, and pre­sen­ta­tions and edited the Note Series that has pub­lished state-of-the-art research results for the past 45 years. He was also a mem­ber of Com­mis­sions A, B & E of the U.S. National Com­mit­tee of the Inter­na­tional Union of Radio Sci­ence (URSI).

Baum received the Elec­tro­mag­net­ics Field Award from the Insti­tute of Elec­tri­cal and Elec­tron­ics Engi­neers (IEEE) in 2007 for his “con­tri­bu­tions to fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples and tech­niques in elec­tro­mag­net­ics,” and the IEEE Anten­nas and Prop­a­ga­tion Soci­ety John Kraus Antenna Award in 2006. He received five Best Paper Awards from the AMEREM/EUROEM Awards Com­mit­tee, and he and his research team were hon­ored as an AFOSR Star Team for 2000-02. The team received the first annual R. Earl Good Award from the Air Force Research Lab­o­ra­tory (AFRL) in 2004 for their work in tar­get identification.

Baum also received the Air Force Basic Research Award (Hon­or­able Men­tion) in 1999, the AFSC Harold Brown Award in 1990, the Harry Dia­mond Memo­r­ial Award in 1987, and the Richard R. Stod­dart award of the IEEE EMC Soci­ety in 1984. He was named the first AFRL Fel­low in 1996, an EMP Fel­low in 1986, and a Fel­low of IEEE in 1984.

Dur­ing Baum’s mil­i­tary career, he was awarded the Air Force Research and Devel­op­ment Award as well as the Air Force Nom­i­na­tion to Ten Out­stand­ing Young Men of America.

Two hon­ors that meant a great deal to Baum came in July 2004: an Hon­orary Doc­tor­ate of Engi­neer­ing from Otto von Guer­icke Uni­ver­sity in Magde­burg, Ger­many, dur­ing EUROEM 2004, and a life­time achieve­ment honor from his col­leagues in Russia.

Baum was an active orga­nizer of sci­en­tific con­fer­ences and work­shops that brought together researchers world­wide to share the lat­est in elec­tro­mag­netic research, and he led EMP short courses and HPE work­shops around the globe. He also estab­lished the SUMMA Foun­da­tion, which spon­sors sci­en­tific con­fer­ences, pub­li­ca­tions, short courses, fel­low­ships and awards in the elec­tro­mag­net­ics field.

Dur­ing the last five years,  Baum enjoyed work­ing with fac­ulty and stu­dents at UNM and con­tin­ued his pro­lific sched­ule of lec­tur­ing around the world.

When not orga­niz­ing meet­ings or putting his new ideas in math­e­mat­ics and elec­tro­mag­net­ics into new tech­ni­cal notes, Baum enjoyed play­ing the piano and cre­at­ing his own musi­cal com­po­si­tions, many of which have been heard at the bien­nial AMEREM and EUROEM con­fer­ences. His musi­cal com­po­si­tions can also be heard at one of the Albu­querque churches that host the annual con­certs of the Albu­querque Sym­phony Orches­tra and Cho­rus, as well as at his own church, where he served as choir direc­tor for a time. Twenty-three of these com­po­si­tions have been recorded and are avail­able on CDs.

Baum was born in Bing­ham­ton, New York, on Feb. 6, 1940. He received his B.S. with hon­ors (1962), M.S. (1963), and Ph.D. (1969) degrees in elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing from the Cal­i­for­nia Insti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy in Pasadena.

He is sur­vived by his sister-in-law, Martha Baum, and two nephews, George Baum of Hous­ton and Spencer Baum, of Albuquerque.

Story by Frances Strong