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Jerry Leigh, a longtime pillar of the Department of Physics’ undergraduate teaching laboratories, passed away in July 2025.��

Leigh was born July 22, 1935. Prior to working at the University of Colorado Boulder, he took college courses for several years but never settled on a degree. At that time, the military draft was active, so Leigh enlisted in the U.S. Army’s Project Nike universal fire control program, a year-long course that trained military personnel in standardizing the fire control system.��

After completing the course, Leigh was assigned as crew chief on an upgrade team responsible for installing the changes to Nike systems. Soon after, he was assigned to the Nike Hercules Site 13 on the McGregor Range in Fort Bliss, Texas, where he taught National Guard members how to operate and maintain the Hercules missile system.��

Following his discharge from Army service, Leigh spent six years working as a field engineer for IBM, but he soon sought to use his technical background in a more creative role. He applied to work for the Department of Physics at ���Ҵ�ý�ƽ������.��

Leigh was hired in September 1967 by Frank Oppenheimer, then an associate professor of physics, to help develop the “Library of Physics Experiments.” In an interview about Oppenheimer, Leigh said he was hired “to assist teaching assistants with growing classes, devising and fabricating fixes for (Oppenheimer’s) often crudely built apparatus and repair lab documentation written hastily without editing.”��

Leigh quickly proved his ability to fix problems in the lab, much to Oppenheimer’s delight. Oppenheimer would point out some equipment needing to be fixed or improved, and Leigh would come up with an innovative solution.�� ��

In one example, a physics experiment designed to measure Earth’s gravity was plagued by a steel ball that kept getting stuck to the electromagnet. Leigh came up with a simple fix by gluing a small fiber washer to the magnet. The adjustment solved the problem, becoming one of the many examples of his creativity in the teaching labs and was used for over 30 years.��

"Jerry was a gifted lab coordinator for the lower division physics laboratory courses,” says John Cumalat, professor of physics. “He had built many of the experiments used in the classes and he could fix any problems that arose. He was legendary among the graduate teaching assistants and with the students as the go-to person to explain how the apparatus and physics worked.”����

In recognition of Leigh’s outstanding contributions and dedication, he was named the Department of Physics Employee of the Year in 2003. Two years later, Leigh was recognized on the campus level when he was designated as the 2005 Chancellor’s Employee of the Year.����

Leigh supported students and faculty in the Department of Physics for 45 years before retiring on December 31, 2012.��

“Jerry was generous with his time and assisted everyone who asked for help,” Cumalat says. “He was a friend to many people in the department. I will never forget his sense of humor, smile, and chuckle."��

Jerry Leigh before his retirement in the fall of 2012.