Jose D. Garcia

Obituary for Jose D. Garcia

On October 14, 2024, Dr. JD Garcia died peacefully at home from Parkinson’s. He was 88 years old. 

JD was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico to Jose D. and Genoveva B. Garcia on January 3, 1936. He grew up in Alcalde, NM and graduated from St. Michael's High School in Santa Fe. As a co-op student at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, he earned a BSc in Physics and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Göttingen, Germany which he attended from 1956-57. He continued his studies at UC Berkeley where he earned a MSc in Physics and met Margot Weaver. They married July 23, 1960. After serving four years as an officer in the Air Force at Kirtland, a science-focused Air Force Base in Albuquerque, he attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison for his Doctorate. After completing a Postdoc at the University of Pittsburgh, he joined the University of Arizona Physics faculty and moved to Tucson in 1967. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society and given the Edward H. Bouchet Award. 

 Besides teaching and research (he had over 50 published papers and over 1500 citations), he served on many department and campus committees and was acting Head of the department several times. After his retirement in 2006 he was acting Associate Dean for the College of Science. He believed fiercely in faculty governance, serving on the Committee of Eleven for many years, on the Faculty Senate, and was President of the Faculty in the 1990s. It was during that time he championed the effort to get a state law passed that created an ex officio seat on the Board of Regents for one of the three Arizona university faculty presidents.

He was passionate about teaching Physics, giving many public talks and working to reach the TV-influenced student. He especially understood the challenge of Physics students transitioning from smaller local colleges to major research universities and was part of a national effort to create “bridging” so the student would be successful in completing graduate degrees. He was one of the early members of SACNAS (Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science) and was President during 2009 & 2010. For many years, the Tucson area High School physics teachers met monthly on a Saturday morning at his house for networking and talks about new ideas in Physics. In 2012 the American Association of Physics Teachers awarded him their Distinguished Service Citation for outstanding support of AAPT and physics education.

JD was also a National Science Foundation officer in Washington DC for a year, served on many NSF grant funding panels, and wrote questions for the Physics GRE exam. 

In Tucson, he was active in the 1970s in Democratic politics. For 57 years he attended the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson and served in many capacities including President of the Congregation.

He is survived by Margot, his wife of 64 years and his children Athena (Tucson) and Karl (Palo Alto, CA) as well as three grandchildren Fabiana, Maya, and Elise and goddaughter Xiomara. He has numerous cousins in New Mexico, especially Violetta and Darrell Anderson of Albuquerque.

A Celebration of Life will be held on Sunday, November 3, 2024, at 2:30 at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson, 4831 E. 22nd St.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to SACNAS at https://www.sacnas.org/donate putting JD Garcia in the memo line.