Clair NIELSON

1935 - 2021  (85 years)

• Name	Clair NIELSON
  Birth	10 Dec 1935	Idaho
  Gender	Male
  Death	18 Jul 2021	New Mexico
  Notes	Clair Nielson — physicist, software and systems engineer, musician, and aficionado of great food and wine — died July 18, 2021, in Santa Fe, NM, from Felty’s Syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease associated with rheumatoid arthritis. He was 85. Clair was born December 10, 1935, in Pocatello, ID, to Elva Worley Nielson and Guy Michael Nielson, a brickmason who went on to found a successful construction company. Clair’s intelligence and wide-ranging curiosity quickly propelled him to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned both his BS (1957) and PhD (1962) in Physics. After an additional year as a research associate at MIT, in 1963 Clair — then just 27 years old — joined the faculty of Swarthmore College as Assistant Professor of Physics. He taught at Swarthmore for four years. In 1967, Clair left Pennsylvania for Los Alamos, NM, where he began a career at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (later LANL). He remained at the Lab until late 1993. After retiring from the Lab, Clair worked at Vista Control Systems in Los Alamos for several years. Clair’s many career accomplishments included designing radar stimulator system software for the U.S. Navy; designing and managing LASL’s Tritium Systems Test Assembly implementation team; and creating and implementing the TEDI scientific editor and formatter, which was used widely at the Lab before a later generation of WYSIWYG formatters became available. Clair was also a founding member of the national Magnetic Fusion Energy Network, and managed the original implementation of LANL Node, the first national network system used at the Lab. Shortly after he arrived in Los Alamos, the 31-year-old Clair took a tour of the Lab’s research library given by a young reference librarian named Carol. They dated off and on for the next 13 years, and were married on January 1, 1981, after an engagement of just a few weeks. Clair and Carol would journey together for the next 40 years, enjoying their shared love of music, food, books, gardens, travel, and each other’s company. By nature, Clair was a “one-person person,” and he was fortunate enough to have found and treasured his one person. Clair’s defining trait was intellectual curiosity. Ever open to learning new things, he approached each of his many interests with great enthusiasm and purpose. Throughout his life Clair applied his focused, analytical mind to a wide array of topics, including photography, motorcycles, Scandinavian modern design, fine wine, and old roses. He designed both of his own houses, using an architectural CAD program he created himself, since he was not satisfied with any of the available commercial programs. Clair was a talented pianist who loved both classical music and jazz. He was a frequent concertgoer and a patron of several of the music organizations in Los Alamos and Santa Fe.  But not content to simply listen, he also enjoyed getting together with like-minded friends to play and discuss music. During retirement, he took the opportunity to deepen his understanding further by studying music theory and improvisation at UNM. He was also a photographer who experimented constantly with new cameras and techniques, and joined photography-focused travel groups even when his increasing rheumatoid arthritis made it difficult to get around. He was a tango champion, a mountain climber, a prolific nonfiction reader, and a technophile whose eyes lit up when he learned about new innovations. Clair is survived by his wife, Carol Nielson; his sister, Beverly Andersen; and Carol’s children from her first marriage, Eric, Stephen, and Elise Malmberg. His ashes will be interred at the Bethlehem Lutheran Church Columbarium in Los Alamos, NM. We miss him, and hope to share our stories forward for many years to honor the memory of this brilliant, inquisitive, and thoughtful man.
  Person ID	I41433	Don Carlson's Tree
  Last Modified	23 May 2024

  
  

  Family	Carol Ruth BELSHEIM,   b. 20 Feb 1930, Hennepin County, Minnesota d. 19 Oct 2023, New Mexico (Age 93 years)
  Family ID	F27811	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	23 May 2024