Alfred Goldberg

Alfred Goldberg died Dec. 17. He was 99.

Goldberg was born on Oct. 2, 1923, in Montreal, Canada, son of Mary and Morris Goldberg. During World War II, and while attending college, he was a member of the Canadian Reserve Army. After graduating from McGill University in 1946, with a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a minor in thermodynamics and ceramic engineering, he moved to the United States and earned his master’s of science degree in metallurgy from Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pennsylvania, where he was also employed as a teaching assistant in metallurgical studies for undergraduate students. Thereafter, he took courses at the University of California, Berkeley where he earned his Ph.D. in metallurgy in 1953.

After receiving his doctorate, Goldberg joined the faculty of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate school in Monterey, California where he was hired as a professor to teach metallurgy to postgraduate U.S. Navy officers from 1953 to 1964. During a sabbatical in 1961, Goldberg served as a Fulbright professor at the National Engineering University in Lima, Peru and then in 1962, he taught at the Institute of Physics in Bariloche, Argentina. In 1964, he was hired as a scientist for the Lawrence Livermore Radiation Laboratory, later known as the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). He was a member of the American Society for Metals, the American Institute of Metallurgical and Mining Engineers, and Sigma Xi Honorary Scientific Society. At the end of his career as a scientist, he co-authored a scientific book on Beryllium Chemistry and Processing, that was published in 2009.

He is survived by his sister Claire, his three children and their spouses: John (Christine), Teresa (Bob), and Edward (Joanne), five grandchildren: Miguel and Marisa Diaz, and Rachel, Michael, and Angela Goldberg, and his three great-grandchildren: Valentino, Natalie, and Oliver. He was preceded in death by his parents, his wife Tanna, brother Harry, and sisters Alice and Florence.

In lieu of a funeral service, his immediate family will be holding a memorial service on Monterey Bay during the spring of 2023, per his request.