From Dr. Gladies Herron, Former Associate Director AAMURI:

AS I KNEW HIM

THE HONORABLE DR. ROBERT “BOB” ZIMMERMAN

NOW what I WANT TO TALK ABOUT with the few minutes I have left are THINGS  OF DR. ROBERT ZIMMERMAN THAT I believe WILL  LAST AN  ETERNITY.

As I Knew Him, he was always encouraging to me with pleasant smiles and exuded positive energy in whatever challenges we faced in developing the Research Institute over a 10 year period.

           As Maya Angelou said in one of her famous quotes:

“I've learned that people will forget what you said,

people will forget what you did,

but people will never forget How you made them Feel.”  END OF QUOTE

I believe our Creator and Heavenly Father placed an enlightened person like Dr. Zimmerman among

us as He saw Fit so we may learn to live an Abundant Life as Dr Zimmerman did.

None of us get to meet a truly enlightened person every day yet

Dr. Zimmerman was one of those. 

Charles Francis has defined an enlightened person this way:

       “The enlightened person has a cheerful disposition most of the time and is willing to share that joy with others.

 He sees that the human condition reaches beyond this physical existence and has no fear of the unknown.

He is free of worry because he understands that freedom from suffering comes from within, and not from material possessions. 

The enlightened person genuinely cares about other people regardless of whether they

care about him and is not self-centered but sees the inter- connected nature of existence.” 

Another person put it this way in describing an enlightened person and I tend to agree:

QUOTE:  “You can tell an enlightened person first by humility.

             They draw others to them just by being.

They have  great peace. 

An enlightened one can be known by his or her realization that

each and every man born has the potential and talents to make this world a better place off through TRUE concern for others.

They know that each man and woman is valuable and has no use for greed, selfishness or hatred of any kind”     END QUOTE

As I knew Him, the Honorable Dr. Robert “Bob” Zimmerman,

he was loving, kind, compassionate, peaceful, emotionally intelligent, stable, patient, understanding and just plain humble.

 I would like to conclude by sharing three stanzas of a poem

ByNairobi,Nairobi-Kenya

I AM NOT GONE

I remain here beside you

Just in a different form

Look for me in your heart

And there you will find me

in our love which forever lives on

In those moments when you feel alone

Look for me in your thoughts

And there you will find me

in sweet memories that burn so strong

Every time a tear
Forms in your beautiful eyes

Look up to the heavens

And there you will see me

Smiling down from God’s glorious skies

To his loving wife, (Adelaide) whom Dr. Zimmerman adored and always had the biggest smiles when talking to me about her and her many achievements,

and to all his close friends who must carry on now without his physical presence, it is okay and natural to grieve for a while

but come out of it EMBRACING what the Heavenly Father allowed us to be a part of and that is the life of the Honorable Dr. Robert Zimmerman 

and what he  left behind for us all---an example of a life well lived, an Enlightened soul that I believe will live forever.

Prof. Zimmerman arrived in Brazil as a young man in the early 60s, after completing his PhD in nuclear physics from MIT in 1952. Already in the early years, he became an important figure in the scientific development of our country. He initially worked for the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research (IPEN) in the city of São Paulo. It’s important to mention that the first research efforts in nuclear physics and in other areas of experimental physics in the country occurred at this time and in this Institute.

Also during the early 1960s, he served as a university professor at the Aeronautics Technological Institute (ITA), one of the most prestigious institutions of higher education in Brazil. Later in the 60’s, Zimmerman joined the faculty of the Physics Institute of the University of Sao Paulo, located in the city of São Carlos. São Carlos at that time was a small, cozy and progressive city where a new department of theoretical and experimental physics was being created. Today this Institute of Physics (IFCM) is among the top 3 institutions in Brazil in the area of physical sciences.

Since his arrival in São Carlos, he showed great talent in teaching and research, especially in the areas of solid state physics, instrumentation, superconductivity, laser radiation, photonics, fiber optics, non-linear dynamics and chaos, biophysics and polymer physics. In 1975, partly as an outgrowth of Bob’s significant contributions, Master’s and PhD programs in the areas of Basic and Applied Physics were formally registered at USP/S.Carlos.

I met Professor Zimmerman in 1971, as an undergraduate physics student in São Carlos, where he taught theoretical and experimental physics. Since our first contacts in the classroom and in labs, I identified with his simple, practical and motivating approach to technical and scientific inquiry. I also gained great admiration for him outside school, where I witnessed his exceptional creativity, natural leadership, witty personality, curiosity about the secrets of nature, and his love of people, sports and the arts, especially music. His natural way of raising his students’ and colleagues’ self-esteem was always contagious.

When I moved out of San Carlos in 1978, after completing the master's degree under Bob Zimmermn’s strong guidance, I had already acquired a taste for science and Bob was my favorite master. In 1983 I finished my PhD graduated studies in physics at Stanford University. Returning to the country in 1984, Bob and I restarted R&D in new areas. At this time I had engaged in the R&D center of TELEBRAS (Brazilian Telecommunication Research Center) located at the city of Campinas, to manage, for the next 15 years, the development program of optical communication technology in Brazil. At the same period, I assumed a part-time position as professor at the Electrical Engineering Department at University of S. Paulo in the city of S. Carlos. In this period, for more than a decade, Bob has helped my research on optical fiber and optical devices (lasers, detectors, amplifiers, ..) to communications technology, and studies on nonlinear dynamic phenomena (chaotic systems) among others related scientific themes that emerged.

In 1986 Bob was transferred to the Department of Physics FFCLRP-USP, Ribeirão Preto, located about 100 km north of San Carlos, to act as full professor at that institution. In FFCLRP he worked until the end of the 90s (1997), when he retired. In this Department, he was responsible for the creation of the graduate program in Applied Physics to Medicine and Biology and this was a key step to consolidate another research group in this area that now has national and international recognition and, years later, became the undergraduate program in medical physics, also a pioneer in USP and Latin America. At the mid 1980’s Bob joint AAMU as a volunteer gest researcher where CIM start to be built. He stayed involved at CIM until 2007.

In short, Robert Lee Zimmerman, multidisciplinary scientist, and educator came to Brazil, where he left many important contributions to our scientific development.  Bob will always be remembered for his exceptional creativity and for his personality and enthusiastic, not only for science, but also for all his passions. As my lovely friend, for more than 40 years, he has exemplified for me not only the art of science, but also the fullness of his love of life. Thank you, dear Bob.

Some of his areas of teaching and researching with more than  200 publications are: Nuclear Physics, Materials Science, Irradiation of Materials – Nanotechnology, Solid State Physics, Piezoelectricity, Superconductivity, Laser technology and optical fibers, Non-linear dynamics – Chaos, Medical Sciences, Biophysics – polymers and Bioelectrets, and Radiological dosimetry.

Sergio Celaschi
July,  2014

I met Robert through my work at the bank in Philip, SD.  He would come in or call and tell me he was flying or had just flown in from Brazil.  It always was amazing to me that he could just hop in his little plane and fly to Brazil or to the United States!  Well now that I read about some of his adventures, I see this was just one of his 'little adventures'. 

It has been great knowing him and also finally meeting Adelaida, you have both been wonderful people to help and I look forward to our future correspondence.

Robert accomplished a lot in his time here on earth and is now flying with the angels.