Dale J. Van Harlingen

1950-2024

Dale Van Harlingen, professor emeritus of physics and the Donald Biggar Willett Professor Emeritus of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, died on Saturday, July 20, 2024, of complications from multiple myeloma. He was surrounded by his loved ones.

A renowned experimental condensed matter physicist, Van Harlingen contributed to our understanding of a broad range of superconductors, both classic and unconventional. Among the many techniques he employed in his laboratory, he is perhaps best known for developing phase-sensitive probes based on Josephson and SQUID interferometry for measuring the pairing symmetry of unconventional superconductors. He also contributed to the development and use of scanning SQUID microscopy and related scanning probes and was a proponent of using noise spectroscopy to reveal dynamical information. More recently, he investigated topological excitations such as Majorana fermion states in hybrid superconductor-topological insulator Josephson junctions.

Van Harlingen served Illinois Physics as its 10th head of the department from 2006 to 2018. He described his own leadership style as an inverted pyramid with him at the bottom, providing faculty and staff with the support and the resources to do their best. His accomplishments in those 12 years benefited Illinois Physics in all its aspects: he tirelessly advocated for its people and research programs, pushed to modernize and upgrade its facilities, and supported evidence-based teaching innovations in its classrooms. He fostered the department’s strong sense of community and the collaborative “Urbana-style” intellectual culture that underpins its research successes. He supported diversity-building initiatives. And at every opportunity, he voiced to the campus community and to the broader academic community what he held to be true, that this department is “the best place in the world to do physics.”

Van Harlingen was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, elected in 2003, and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected in 1999. He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He was a recipient of the 1998 Oliver E. Buckley Prize in Condensed Matter Physics of the American Physical Society.

At Illinois, he received the 2016 Campus Executive Officer Distinguished Leadership Award. He was elected a Center for Advanced Study Professor in 2005. Van Harlingen retired from teaching in 2023, but continued to hold a research appointment up until his death.

Van Harlingen received a B.S. in physics in 1972 and a Ph.D. in physics in 1977, both from The Ohio State University. After a year as a NATO postdoctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge, England, he held a postdoctoral research position at the University of California, Berkeley for three years. He joined the faculty at Illinois Physics in 1981.

Beyond his professional achievements, Van Harlingen was known for his kind and gentle nature, his sense of humor and his ability to connect with others. He was a passionate sports fan, fervently supporting Ohio State football, Illinois basketball, and Chicago’s professional teams—the Cubs, the Bears, and the Blackhawks. He recently rediscovered his joy of golf as well. Dale loved to travel and was lucky to have spent time in countless cities and countries. He was a devoted wine enthusiast, often visiting Napa Valley and Sonoma’s vineyards.

Van Harlingen is survived by his wife, Judy Vandenberg; by his children, Jeffrey (Amanda) Van Harlingen, Rebecca (Jacob) Gray, and Erin (Jason) Vandenberg; and by his grandchildren, Ayden and Reese Van Harlingen and Makenna and Landon Gray.

Van Harlingen’s legacy of curiosity, education, and joy in life’s simple pleasures will be remembered by all who knew him.