In Memoriam: Leon Jay (Lee) Schipper (1947-2011)
Leon Jay (Lee) Schipper (1947-2011)
“Lee Schipper’s death is a great loss to the research field of transport, energy and the environment. We will miss his expertise and guidance in the course of the fifth assessment cycle and beyond,” says Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of the IPCC Working Group III. Schipper been intimately involved with the IPCC for many years, having contributed as a Lead Author to the IPCC’s second Assessment Report’s chapter on Mitigation Options in the Transportation Sector.
Lee Schipper had earned his Ph.D. in astrophysics in 1985, but devoted his career to problems of transport, energy and environment, particularly in large urban areas. In the 1980s, he was a co-founder of the International Energy Study Group at the US Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In 2002, he founded EMBARQ, the World Resources Center for Sustainable Transport. He had moved back to Berkeley as a Visiting Scholar at the University of California Transport Center, and became project scientist at Global Metropolitan Studies in October, 2008.
Schipper had obtained his bachelor’s degree in music from Berkeley in 1968. He led a jazz quintet and recorded “The Phunky Physicist” in Sweden in 1973. “Lee not only made a major contribution to energy efficiency over several decades, he was also a top jazz musician playing vibes, and was keen to play in the IPCC band. He will be sadly missed by many, in both these roles,” says Ralph Sims of the Massey University in New Zealand, who is Coordinating Lead author of the AR5 Transport chapter.
The WGIII co-chairs Ottmar Edenhofer, Ramon Pichs-Madruga and Youba Sokona, the WGIII TSU and the AR5 authors would like to express their sympathy to Lee Schipper’s wife and daughters.
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