Mar 29, 2007 - Claremont, Calif. - Former HMC faculty member Albert Baez, the father of folk singers Joan Baez and the late Mimi Farina, died March 20 in Redwood City, Calif., at age 94.

A physicist, Baez helped develop the field of X-ray imaging optics and was on the team that developed the first X-ray reflection microscope that could examine living cells.

In his book “Harvey Mudd College: The First 20 Years,” founding president Joseph B. Platt wrote of Baez’s appointment to the faculty:

The second appointment of that year [1960] was Albert V. Baez, a Stanford Ph.D. working at that time with a Harvard program for the improvement of physics teaching 10. Al had a number of things on his agenda: He was writing an introductory college textbook in physics intended to interest non-physicists in physics, and he wanted to teach from it to see what worked and what didn’t. A physicist at Claremont Men’s College was to be on leave that year, and so half of Al’s time was committed there. Also Al was much interested in improvement of science teaching throughout the world; a year later UNESCO, a specialized agency of the United Nations, appointed him to its division of exact and natural sciences to work with member states interested in the improvement of teaching in the natural sciences. His stay with us was accordingly brief. He has continued through much of his subsequent life as a teacher of teachers, here and abroad.

In addition to his daughter Joan, Baez is survived by his wife, another daughter, three grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.