Harry S. Camarda

 Harry S. Camarda died peacefully at his home in Philadelphia on February 20, 2021. He was the beloved son of Ignazio and Celia, brother of Zina, and husband of Judith (née Silberberg), all of whom predeceased him; adored father of Ilene (Brian) and Alexander; and cherished husband of Ellen. Born in 1938 in the Bronx, he was the son of a Sicilian immigrant and first-generation Sicilian-American who both worked in New York’s garment industry. An indifferent student, his main interest was drag racing his hand-me-down Studebaker on Utopia Parkway. But in 1957, his habit of doodling airplanes, a stint in the army, and the example of a co-worker at a machine shop gave him the idea of trying the night program at the Academy of Aeronautics. There, he discovered an ability in mathematics. He soon moved on to New York University’s engineering program and eventually became a physics major, graduating in 1963. Attending the Newport Jazz Festival with NYU friends that summer, he met fellow student Judy, and they married in 1964. Accepted into the PhD program in physics at Columbia University, he wrote his dissertation under Nobel laureate James Rainwater. In 1979, while working at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California, he chanced a temporary faculty position at the Brandywine campus of Penn State University in Media, PA; he subsequently became a full professor and taught physics and mathematics there for more than 25 years while continuing his research and consulting at the Livermore lab. In the mid-1990s, he lost his beloved wife, his sister, and oldest friend over 18 months. He was also black belt in aikido, which he practiced for more than 20 years. In 1998, he met Ellen, a fellow practitioner, and they married in 2000. That year he also began taking drawing classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and in 2006, after retiring (emeritus) from Penn State, he was accepted into the atelier Angel Academy of Art in Florence, Italy, where he and Ellen lived for four years while he studied. In the last decade of his life, he regularly showed his drawings and paintings in the Philadelphia area, winning several prizes. His painting of a cast of Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 life mask is in the collection of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Diagnosed with cancer in 2018, he kept painting, showing his work, and studying physics during more than 30 months of treatment. Harry treasured family and friendship, appreciated a home-cooked meal, enjoyed the process of making art, marveled at the beauty and power of mathematics, and worked hard to better understand the laws of nature that physics describes. Contributions in his memory can be made to the John Vairo Open Doors Scholarship (contact Marleen Livingstone at mrf112@psu.edu), the undergraduate scholarship fund that Harry established at Penn State Brandywine and named for an esteemed former director of the campus.

PHOTO: Portrait of Harry Camarda (detail) by Shane Wolf, 2008