We sadly announce the passing of Henry Abarbanel, Distinguished Professor of Physics in the School of Physical Sciences and research physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography’s Marine Physical Laboratory. He was known for his groundbreaking work on nonlinear dynamics in physical and biological systems. Henry was 79 years old.
Henry joined UC San Diego in 1982. Prior to that, he was on faculty at Northwestern University and Princeton University, was a visiting professor at Stanford University and UC Santa Cruz, and was a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
A pioneer in nonlinear systems neuroscience, Henry made key contributions to a wide range of scientific inquiry, including machine learning, geophysics and regional weather forecasting, electrical signals in the heart and their role in heart disease, odor recognition in insects, oceanic gravity waves, and fluid dynamics. He was the founding director of UC San Diego’s Institute for Nonlinear Science, a founding faculty member of the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, and co-founder and associate director of the Center for Engineered Natural Intelligence at Jacob’s School of Engineering.
For the past 25 years, Henry was an instructor-of-record for graduate courses in neurodynamics and served as a kind and patient mentor to numerous graduate students. He was a pioneer in the use of matrix factorization of multisite recordings of neuronal activity and ushered in dimensional reduction as a standard tool in neuroscience.
Henry championed diversity and inclusion in science and mentored many female students and early career scientists over the years. Most recently, he visited a middle school to encourage the female students in class to follow their passion for science, despite any obstacles they might face.
He was an active member of his local community and helped found Del Mar community journal, The Sandpiper. Henry was an integral part of several organizations concerned with energy, wastewater, infrastructure, and quality of life in the San Diego region. He was a long-standing member of the Del Mar City Council and served as deputy mayor and mayor of Del Mar. He was appointed by California Governor Jerry Brown to the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board, where he served as chair for seven years. Henry was also a longtime member of the board of directors of Planned Parenthood of San Diego.
Henry belonged to numerous organizations and received multiple awards for his work over the years. He was an early member of JASON, the national scientific advisory group, and co-led a study on the climate effects of carbon dioxide. He was also a fellow of the American Physical Society, an Honorary Woodrow Wilson Fellow, a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and a Sloan Research Fellow. He held visiting professorships across the globe, including the Institute of Neuroinformatics in Switzerland, the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Germany, and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. He received his bachelor of science in physics from the California Institute of Technology and his Ph.D. in physics from Princeton.
Henry is remembered for his leadership, dedication and mentorship. He is described as “incredibly intelligent,” “joyously creative” and “endlessly generous” by peers and students.
“Henry's research journey has been truly awe-inspiring, encompassing a vast array of disciplines, including high energy physics, nonlinear dynamics, chaos theory, neuroscience and machine learning,” said Department of Physics Chair Oleg Shpyrko. “However, his legacy extends well beyond his impressive academic achievements. He will forever be cherished as a compassionate educator and the champion of aspiring early careers scientists, especially the many generations of physics Ph.D. students and postdocs he nurtured, guided and mentored over the past four decades at UC San Diego. His profound influence and spirit will continue to flourish within the hearts and minds of the scientists he so diligently trained.”
Henry is survived by his wife of 40 years, Beth Levine; daughter Brett Abarbanel and her husband Jared Okun; and daughter Sara Abarbanel, her husband Jonathan Feinberg and their daughter, Joanna Feinberg.
