Memorial Service for William Robert Sheldon, UH Professor Emeritus of Physics
A Memorial Service for William Robert Sheldon, UH Professor Emeritus of Physics, who died last week while out of the country, will be held at 1 p.m., Saturday, May 7, at the home of family friend Didier Majoie,1918 Night Star Ln. 77077.
Bob Sheldon is survived by his ex-wife, his two sons, and his daughter. They are honoring his request to be buried at sea.
Sheldon served as a pilot in the military and worked for Boeing before beginning his career at UH in 1968, where he served as professor of physics and also as a past chair of the department. Sheldon’s expertise was space physics.
In 1983, an experiment called Waterhole III, a collaboration among Sheldon’s UH Space Physics Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Cornell University, and Canada’s National Research Council, drew much media attention and made the pages of Newsweek. The experiment involved exploding a special sort of bomb about 185 miles above the surface in northern Canada to gather data and understand the complex occurrences that produce the aurora.
At the time of his death, Sheldon was still actively pursuing space physics research, which involved close collaborations with UH Physics Professors James R. Benbrook and Edgar Bering.
