Ian Kaplan: From Shtetl to Famous Scientist
JABLONKA Mark TENOVA
|
|
INZFA
ISRAEL NEW-ZEALAND FRIENDSHIP ASSOCIATION
Ian Kaplan: From Shtetl to Famous Scientist
We are very sad to report that our dear brother Ian, passed away peacefully at home in Los Angeles on 11/11/21. Helen, his wife of 66 years was by his side and he is survived by his children Debora and David and 6 grandchildren. Ian was 92 and will be sorely missed by his family, friends and his scientific colleagues in Israel and around the world.
Ian (aka Isaac), was born in Hancewicz, Poland, in 1929. In 1937, thanks to the assistance of our mother’s brother Charlie Chait, visas were sent to our parents, Grandfather Abram Chait and Ian to travel to the safe haven of New Zealand. The family settled originally in Christchurch, where 3 more Kaplan children, Lynette, Aaron and Nina were born. Ian attended Canterbury College, where he received B.Sc and M.Sc degrees in Chemistry.
He then moved to Sydney where he met and married Helen, the girl next door, and worked at Sydney University in the department of microbiology headed by Professor de Burgh. There are a couple of interesting coincidences regarding others who worked in this lab. Solly Faine was doing medical research there and so was a young medical student named Geoff Collins who, in 1964, married Lynette and became Ian’s brother-in-law.
Ian and Helen left Sydney for California in 1957 and he continued his studies and received a Ph.D in Biogeochemistry from the University of Southern California. He then went on to do a post-doc in geochemistry at Caltech.
Israel was always part of our family’s credo. Our grandfather Abram made Aliyah on his own at the age of 82 and died there at age 94. His grandfather Shaya, in the middle of the 19th century, walked from Lachowicze (which was then Russia) to Jerusalem and is buried on the Mt. of Olives. Nina couldn’t wait to make Aliyah and left for Israel as soon as she finished high school and graduated from the Hebrew University with a B.A. She now lives in Zichron Ya’acov. Although Ian wanted to make Aliyah, that didn’t work out, but along with Roger Benjamin, Reuven Zander, Bernard and Blanche Weinstein and others, he was a founder of Habonim NZ.
So after finishing his studies in Los Angeles, Ian was very excited to be offered a job in Jerusalem in the department of Chemical Microbiology at Hadassah Medical School. They arrived there in 1962, about 6 months after Lynette had left Jerusalem and returned to Wellington. For the next 2 years, his studies involved the Jordan River watershed and the Dead Sea. During that time, he met 2 students who were very keen to do post doctoral work under him and when he returned to Los Angeles in 1965 to take up a professorship at the University of California at Los Angeles, they came to work in his lab. The main fields of research were deep sea sediments, lunar samples, meteorites and the kinetics of petroleum formation.
Ian’s scientific interests were many and he started researching the influence of minerals in the formation of hydrocarbons and their connection to solving environmental pollution problems. In addition to his teaching and research, he and Helen set up a company called Global Geochemistry, dedicated to diagnosing environmental pollution and oil feasibility studies in oceans around the globe. Following the sale of his company, he donated the proceeds to the Hebrew University Institute of Earth Sciences which holds a biennial symposium/workshop in his name: the Kaplan Workshop. It gave him the opportunity to visit Israel regularly and enjoy meeting up with old friends, family, colleagues, students and scientists from overseas who attended the workshop.
Ian was a superb and dedicated teacher, who loved learning, teaching, doing research and writing papers. He often got home late because he would enjoy chatting with his students and answering questions in his office at the end of the day. He was loved and respected by scientists around the world and won several prestigious awards and tributes. Ian also loved traveling and visited many parts of the world for meetings and with his family. He was also extremely hospitable, was the ultimate tour guide and for many years entertained family members and colleagues from overseas.
Although, in his latter years Ian wasn’t able to visit Israel, he kept current with Israeli affairs and remained in touch with his old students and colleagues. His love for Israel remained very strong.
Nina Gershuni and Lynette Collins
Baby photo: Hancewicze 1930
Graduation: Wellington 1953
Other 2 were taken in LA in 2019
|
Mark Jablonka |
|
|
|
|
Tenova: Sustainable Solutions for Metals and Mining
Visit our website at: www.tenova.com
Confidentiality
Notice: This message, together with its attachments, contains strictly confidential information and is intended only for the addresses identified above, who is the sole party authorized to use and copy it and, assuming any related liability, to forward it to others. Anyone receiving this message by mistake or reading it without authorization is hereby notified that storage, reproduction, disclosure or distribution of the message to persons other than the addressee is strictly forbidden. They are asked to return the message immediately to the sender and to erase the original message received.
Thank you.