Eugene P. Bertin, author of the most famous XRF textbooks and a very popular instructor in XRF courses, has died at the age of 86, in his apartment in Harrison, NJ, USA. Dr. Bertin was a student at the University of Illinois, in Urbana and received his B.S., M.S., and finally PhD in 1952, in Analytical/Inorganic Chemistry. He worked at the RCA Research Center in Princeton, NJ for many years. Dr. Bertin made many contributions to X-ray spectroscopy. He was the principle lecturer at the "Short summer course in X-ray spectrometry" (organized by Professor Henry Chessin, State University of New York at Albany), and also at ICDD XRF courses. His textbooks, "Principles and Practice of X-Ray Spectrometric Analysis" (Plenum, 1970 (first edition), 1975 (second edition)) and "Introduction to X-Ray Spectrometric Analysis" (Kluwer Academic Pub, 1978) were recognized as the best in the world and were hallmark texts used by thousands of people all over the world. Reviews of these books have been published in X-Ray Spectrometry journal (See, 1, 45 (1972), 4, A18 (1975), 8, v (1979)). Another interesting review is found in J. Appl. Cryst., 5, 387 (1972). Dr. Bertin was a recipient of the Birks Award at the 1988 Denver Conference. One of his best friends, Dr. V. E. Buhrke has posted an article, "Testimonial and Obituary - in honor of Dr. Eugene P. Bertin, PhD" to the XRF-L mailing list, which can be also read at (http://listserv.syr.edu/scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0812&L=xrf-l&T=0&F=&S=&P=1003).
