Guest Book

Full Name	Institution	Comments
Kirby, Robert	SLAC	I want to express my condolescences on Bob passing. I know his was special to his students and colleagues. When I first met him, I instantly wanted to be like him: bright, welcoming, honest. Through the years, I gain only more admiration for him, and for the excellent students he produced. Having known him was a gift.
Bernstein, John L	SLAC (retired)	Bob's work gave me the work of my life, work with joy and wonderment, not all can have as much.
Calder, Neil	ITER	It was a privilege to have worked with Bob. Always helpful,never obstructive.
Horton-Smith, Glenn	Kansas State University	Although I haven't seen Bob since I left SLAC almost 11 years ago, I fondly remember his kindness, the great enjoyment he got from solving problems, and his sense of humor. I remember one time when he showed the operators a very quick solution to a seemingly perplexing tuning problem: after the problem had been fixed with a single quick adjustment, he left grinning happily and saying "Problem solved. Next problem, please!"
Placidi, Massimo	Lyncean Technologies, Inc.	To the Family of my Colleague and Friend Bob: Mutual Appreciation and Respect. These are the ingredients of the bond that grew between Bob and myself since the SLC times at SLAC. We worked together as reviewers at Fermilab and the collaboration could not have been more harmonic. Bob wrote a nice letter of presentation for my Green Card petition a bit more than one year ago. He was probably already sick. I just received my Green Card and I feel deeply indebted to Him for this and many other reasons. With all my respectful thoughts, Massimo
Rosenzweig, James	UCLA Department of Physics and Astronomy	It is with regret that I will not be able to come for the symposium, but instead will come up for the workshop. Knowing Bob, he would probably have approved on the emphasis of science over sentiment! It is still hard to believe that he is gone; when someone of this force leaves us, his memory lives on in our hearts and minds for a very long time.
Jowett, John	CERN	I first met Bob in 1982, when I was just beginning to work on particle accelerators, on a visit to Cornell. After a walk around the campus, during which we discussed a problem related to the then-future LEP machine at CERN, he took me to the CESR control room and organized an impromptu experiment, there and then, to help resolve it. Later I learned that this was absolutely typical of Bob: always friendly, encouraging, bursting with creativity and with a gift for making things happen. This showed up at all levels, from his personal interactions to his many scientific achievements and his initiatives (especially PR-STAB) to enhance the status of the international accelerator physics community. I would like to extend my deepest sympathy to Bob's family.
Melissinos, Adrian	University of Rochester	I had known Bob for many years, from the early days at Cornell and Brookhaven, to the remarkably productive era at SLAC. Bob was a great Physicist and also a good friend. While we did not work on the same experiment he was always supportive and kind and his work touched the career of many young people. I had not seen Bob for several years, so his unexpected loss was a great shock. We all miss the contributions that he would continue to make, his sense of humor, and his friendship. To his family, friends and colleagues I send my sincere condolences. Adrian Melissinos
Nagahashi, Naomi	SLAC	I got to know Bob after our groups merged. Bob's intelligence and dignity are what I remember from our initial conversations and I remember that I was not sure what to say to him at first. I can recall a time when he waited quietly and patiently in my office while I finished all of the procedures to complete some purchases for him. After everything was done, he gave me a big smile ... I really liked that smile :-) He is missed greatly and I only wish that I had known him better. I hope that we can all make this symposium successful and memorable for his family and friends.
Kirby, Neil	Stanford	Robert Siemann was a wonderful advisor. He was always willing to drop whatever he was doing to discuss physics and had an amazing knack for guidance. Bob knew how to let me struggle with a problem enough to learn from it, but would step in at the right moment to keep my forward progress. I have developed as a physicist from his guidance and have been influenced greatly by his love of physics.
Ruth, Ron	SLAC	Throughout the past several years Bob and I had many long conversations on topics such as teaching, fundamentals of acceleration, nonlinear dynamics, publishing, accelerator research, politics and the list goes on. Bob has had an significant impact on our field and accelerator scientists throughout the world. He has also had a significant impact on my life and I will miss him greatly.
Chao, Alex	SLAC	Bob's vision of academia and his undaunted leadership toward that vision will be warmly remembered and solely missed by our accelerator community and at SLAC in particular. -- Alex Chao
McGuinness, Chris	SLAC	The biggest influence on me choosing to pursue particle accelerators was Bob Siemann. We as students could not have asked for a better advisor. Bob was incredibly patient with us. He let us flounder and define our own paths, while providing valuable insight when we really needed it. One of my most memorable experiences with Bob reflects this character. I was deciding upon a thesis topic, and I was very reluctant to take on a topic that I felt was being forced upon me by others. I came up with three alternate topics I would prefer doing and met with Bob one afternoon to discuss them. He very patiently sat there and listened to my ideas, and asked me a few poignant questions. I did some research to answer Bob’s questions, and in doing so realized two of the ideas were fairly impractical. In retrospect Bob knew this before I had figured it out, and was clearly in favor of the topic I am working on now, but he let me figure this out on my own. Bob ran our group in that same fashion, taking into account everyone’s thoughts and ideas, yet providing valuable guidance and wisdom when needed. It is this among many other admirable characteristics that made Bob such a great advisor. He has impacted many students, and you should all be very proud of what he did with his life. He will forever be a role model to me in my life.
Wilson, Perry	SLAC, Stanford University	For me, Bob's greatest contribution to accelerator physics was his creation of the on-line journal "Physical Review Special Topics-Accelerators and Beams". Before that, many of us in the field of accelerator physics had no really good place to publish our work. And most of the journals in which we could publish were very expensive and not easily available to students.
Nassiri, Alireza	Argonne National Laboratory	Bob was a strong advocate for novel acceleration techniques and RF structures. When he found out that we at ANL launched an R&D program to use microfabrication via X-ray lithography (LIGA) technique for the fabrication of precision high-frequency structures, he showed keen interest and visit ANL in 1996 to learn more about this novel approach and how it could be applied to future accelerators. This resulted in collaboration with Bob and his group at SLAC on the development of W-band accelerating structures.