Dear Colleagues:

Joe was a fine, dedicated person with a subtle sense of humor and an ocean of humility. We all can remember him standing in our doorway to engage a thought or idea with us, always with a sense of passion and good sense in his demeanor. I admired him very much and learned a lot from our friendship. I will miss him very much. I look forward to our getting together to exchange good Joe Kiskis memories.

Barry

Joe was a very special colleague and friend.

His enthusiastic support for the cosmology initiative extended well into the implementation, not just the approval of the plan. I will always be grateful for the many ways that support manifested.

And his sharp intellect was a wonderful thing. He would often attend my research meetings and challenge anything that did not make sense. In a number of instances these challenges resulted in significant shifts in my thinking about a topic, for me always the most exciting part of being a scientist!

And most important of all, Joe was a wonderful, warm caring human.

I am very sad that he has passed, and will miss his friendship and brilliant mind.

-Andy

I heard about Joe Kiskis' passing from Ramona Vogt. Rajamani Narayanan and myself were his first PhD students. We all worked together then. Joe give us our doctorate in 1990. He was an amazing mentor. I was closely working with Joe until a few years ago and we stayed in touch. So did my colleague Rajamani.

I can not tell you what a shock this is. I thought that Joe will always be there. He was my mentor and the best physicist and person that I have encountered. I can not process this yet. He has been in my heart for so many years and he will always be there.

I am writing to request, if possible, to include us in any emails regarding any memorial or events you are planning. I spoke with his wife yesterday and she told me that you would be organizing any events. I am at Livermore Labs so I can easily make it to Davis and would be honored to participate as you like.

[...]

Thank you.

Best wishes,

Pavlos

I heard about the sudden and unexpected passing of Joe Kiskis, my mentor and PhD advisor. I graduated in 1990. Please keep me informed of any memorial service that the physics department may be planning for Joe.

Joe was not just my physics mentor; Diana and Joe are very good family friends of ours.

Best regards,
Rajamani.

Dear Colleagues,

I heard from Diana, Joe Kiskis' wife, that Joe passed away today. I do not know further details.

Joe joined the department as a faculty member in 1980, but he was also an undergraduate Physics major here, graduating in 1969. He was an outstanding junior investigator of the DOE and a Sloan Fellow. He retired in 2013.

Many of you know what an amazing person Joe was in terms of his commitment to the department and to the university. Among other things he was instrumental in the first offerings of the Physics-9 honors sequence (in 1993) and in pushing strongly to inaugurate an Astrophysics/Cosmology group (beginning in 1995), advocating especially for it in the face of resistance from the higher administration. He was a passionate advocate for faculty rights and shared governance.

Joe was also an avid bicyclist (the Foxy Falls Century etc) and hiker (Desolation Wilderness...) I once made the mistake of trying to go on a ride with him. It did not end well for me.

I need to gather my thoughts about this devastating news. We will certainly do something to remember our good friend and colleague.

In sadness,
Richard

I’m very sorry to hear this. For years, Joe would regularly come down to the third floor to chat with us about physics, campus politics, and beyond. As Richard says, his commitment to the department and university was outstanding.

Max

I feel shocked and very sad as well. Joe was really a one-of-a-kind intellectual, physicists, and activist, very socially conscious. I know Richard and Joe have both been heavily involved in the Davis Faculty Association… we should all join and be involved, in part in his honor, and in part… because we should. I remember discussing 9HC with him a lot, and in fact I have his 9HC page bookmarked on Safari still so his name is on every new window I pop up, reminding me of him. (In fact it was a decade ago but it feels not so long ago.) I wish I had seen him recently— I haven’t— but I remember as Max does: he used to come down and chat with us on the third floor quite a bit. He will be very much missed. I’m sorry for your loss Richard, and all others here who knew him much longer and better than I did.

Best, Robin

Wow. Very sad to hear this. I really liked him

So sad to hear this! He will be missed!

Ling-Lie

Indeed, Joe was a great colleague and a quiet intellectual. I never saw even the slightest ego in him.Even more than an advocate for faculty rights he was an advocate for student rights, especially for students from poor backgrounds. He was a strong and vocal critic of rising student fees.

My sincere homage to Joe!

Rajiv

Joe was one of our undergraduates in 1969. Lander liked him very much. As Rajiv said Joe become a valuable member of the Department. Joe and I became good friend.

Best regards,

Ching

Another side of Joe: he led faculty pushback, after the switch to Division 1, on having different academic standards for athletic admissions. He believed that the athletes should meet the same standards, and even more important, that such decisions should be controlled by the faculty. He understood that it wasn't going to happen, but he had good suggestions about how to keep up awareness of the issue.

He didn't want any hoopla about his retirement, not even an announcement. He then continued to chair the Computer Committee for several years, as well as attending talks and department events. People gradually noticed that he was listed as Emeritus on the department's web page, but sometimes they assumed that must be an error!

Honoring his memory,

Rena

I’m deeply saddened to hear this news of Joe. He was a remarkable individual! He continued to serve the department for many years after his retirement, serving as Chair of the Computing Committee for many years and meeting monthly with Chris and me for updates. We loved hearing stories of his expeditions, notably an attempt at Everest! What an amazing, full life he had! I feel fortunate to have known him.

Tracy

Many thanks for passing this terrible news on to me. I’m devastated and can hardly believe it. I’d known Joe since I taught him when he was a graduate student at Stanford. He was one of my early post-docs back in the mid-late ‘70s. We only wrote one paper together, a PRL, which was a lovely technical, even elegant, paper on quark masses, reflecting Joe’s wonderful talent as a very clear and precise thinker with substantial technical skills. Of the more than 100 post-docs I’ve had or worked with over more than 50 years, Joe still stands out in my mind as one of the smartest and clearest thinkers. As you know, he was also a fine person and one whose company I always enjoyed. My regret, like so many in life, is that I didn’t remain closer in contact over the years. I am deeply saddened by his loss,

Best regards,

Geoffrey

This is such sad news! Lori and I would quasi-regularly see Joe on the greenbelt when he was out walking his dog. Even deep into retirement he was always much more aware of what was going on at UC than I was. Unfortunately our dogs didn't like Joe's dog, so we rarely got a chance to chat for more than a few minutes.

Joe once saved me. I was working late on a NSF proposal when I locked myself out of my office. It was well after midnight, so the janitorial staff was no longer there, and any grad students who might have been around would not have been able to help me since their keys wouldn't open my
office. I was feeling desperate but then I remembered that Joe was a real night owl and might be around. Indeed he was in his office and was able to let me back in. Speaking of his office, I will always remember his, with books stacked so high everywhere that I didn't know how he managed to move
around in the office.

Joe could come off as a bit gruff, but he was in fact a really friendly guy. I'm going to miss him.

Chris

I have had many conversations with Joe over the years. Like me, he was a quantum field theorist, and we discussed many aspects of that, especially lattice gauge theory where he was an expert. But probably most influential to me were his views on good governance and the university. He and I had many discussions about that, and they did a lot to shape my views about the issues. Joe had a clear vision about what the university should be, but he was always measured and knowledgeable. (Those things go together, right?)

For example, he told me that the department used to fail some non-trivial fraction of students on the qualifying exam, and thought that it was not good for the students that we were basically passing everyone.

He always struck me as modest and kind. I will really miss him.

Markus

I am very sorry about his passing.

Valeria

It is very sad that Joe passed away. The news came truly as a shock to me, simply because for the last two years up until a few months ago, I would run into him at Davis Senior High School Tennis Court. He would come to on his fine bike, with a single racket and a can of tennis balls (no bag or anything like that). So, how could he pass away just like that with all that youthful energy and vitality?

He would practice serving by himself or talk someone into playing single games (ONE-on-One game!?), at his age. He always seemed so fit, so charming, never looked his age. We promised to play doubles game one of these days when I saw him just a few months ago (I only play doubles game
as I am not fit enough to play singles game as he could). But it will not be.

Since I joined the department in 1989 up until he retired a decade ago, I had always been impressed by his thoughtfulness and calm when expressing his opinions, his respect for his colleagues whether they agreed or disagreed with him, his fairness and open-mindedness, and his devotion to the healthy and balanced growth of our department and our causes at departmental level and campus level. He showed genuine interests in conversation, with his charming smiles like the one still on the departmental webpage. He could talk big at faculty meetings, and talk small in private in the Hallway or on the tennis court. He was a great friend to be around, even for someone like myself who didn't know a thing about the Lattice Gauge theory.

I feel so sorry that he passed away so soon. In my mind's eyes, I can still see him riding on his bike or serving a well-placed ball on the far side of the tennis court.

I will miss him.

Xiangdong

I am also so sorry to hear of Joe's passing. He was always the consummate gentleman and the local expert on how the university operates. As Richard said, he was passionate about shared governance at the university and the department's first recipient of the Charles P. Nash Prize from the Academic Senate, Davis Faculty Association, and the Nash Family Foundation
https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/joe-kiskis-wins-charles-nash-prize-faculty-leadership

Joe was a great colleague. He was dedicated to service, and filled with intellectual curiosity. He will be missed.

Rajamani Narayanan sent me an email yesterday telling me that Jos Kiskis had recently passed away. I was deeply saddened and surprised to learn that Joe had died. We were good friends and collaborators both at SLAC, when we were both graduate students and at MIT where he as a postdoc and I as a new faculty member collaborated on one of the most impactful papers during the MIT-Bag-Model heyday: Phys.Rev.D 12 (1975) 2060 has nearly 2000 cites on Inspire. More personally, Joe was a great outdoorsman when we were at Stanford, seemingly spending every weekend
in the Sierras. One memory that has not faded over the intervening 50 years: He, his wife at the time, I and a visiting scientist at SLAC (Roberto Suaya, I believe) attempted a backpacking trip into Tuolomne Meadows, coming in from the Northeast over the Sawtooth Range early in the spring of 1971. When we came over the pass from the East, we encountered a surprising late blizzard that forced us to seek shelter overnight in a snow cave. We survived, but had to turn back due to heavy and unstable snow on the trail below us. The hike back out over the pass and down was challenging. I recollect that this famous storm killed several hikers on the Minarets. I'm attaching a scan of two old slides, the first showing us exiting our snow cave successfully, the second showing Joe negotiating the heavy snowfall on our way out. I believe that is Joe on the left in the first slide; I remember his red backpack. Joe's enthusiasm for life and physics was electrifying. Although we had
fallen out of touch in recent years, as has happened with so many of my old physics friends and collaborators, I have great admiration for his intellect and his exuberant love of life.

With condolences for your loss,
Best wishes,
Bob Jaffe

I never climbed a mountain with Joe, or visited a secluded island, or even biked with Joe. Our interaction was solely in the department, with several meetings with Joe and Diana at the Mondavi Center. As some have mentioned, his comments in faculty meetings were exceedingly helpful, sometimes promoting the original plans in creating the University of California system but generally setting some record straight. He had a wealth of institutional memory. [We know how much things (esp. state funding) has changed.]

Joe's humility has been mentioned. I remember him stating, several years before his retirement and after the department had grown in size and visibility, that "now I would not be able to be hired into this department." Not true. His expertise in lattice gauge theory, and use of computers in a much broader sense, has been at the expert level, and in addition to his research he has served the department and division is crucial computational roles. We will all miss Joe.

Like many of Joe’s admirers, I met Joe through his dedicated work to address a complex academic situation at UC Davis. As Chair of the Undergraduate Council, he was responsible for reviewing a proposal from the Dean of L&S to change the undergraduate writing requirements and alter how the courses were delivered.

Presented as educational improvements, the changes would have allowed the dean to decimate a nationally-recognized program in writing across the disciplines, by firing all the faculty who had created and now delivered the courses that satisfied undergraduate education requirements,.

When I called to introduce myself and offer my assistance, as Director of the UWP, Joe hopped on his bike at once and rode over to my office with a raft of questions. Over several years, Joe became the knight in shining armor who saved the writing program from destruction.

Recently, I’ve been thinking of calling Joe again to help the UWP fend off a new destructive proposal from a new dean. Although retired, Joe was already well aware of the new proposal: he recently had told a colleague that he felt his legacy was being destroyed.