HENISCH, Heinz K. 1922-

(Benjamin Spear)

PERSONAL: Born April 21, 1922, in Neudek, Germany; son of Leo (an attorney) and Fanny (Soicher) Henisch; married Bridget Ann Wilsher (a photo-historian and medievalist), February 6, 1960. Education: University of Bristol, B.Sc., 1940; University of Reading, B.Sc., 1942, Ph.D., 1949. Hobbies and other interests: Computers, music, photography.

ADDRESSES: Home and Office—346 Hillcrest Ave., State College, PA 16803; fax: 814-238-3577.

CAREER: Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, England, junior scientific officer, 1942-46; University of Reading, Reading, England, lecturer in physics, 1948-62; Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, professor of physics, 1963-93, professor of the history of photography, 1974-93, research professor emeritus, 1993—, elected life fellow of Institute for the Arts and Humanistic Studies, also associate director of Materials Research Laboratory, 1968-75. Sylvania Electric Products, visiting scientist, 1955-56; Goucher College, Samuel Newton Taylor Lecturer, 1973; lecturer at colleges and universities in Austria, Czechoslovakia, England, France, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Peru, Romania, Switzerland, Taiwan, Venezuela, and throughout the United States, as well as on television. Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, codirector of exhibition "Beauty in Science: Science in Art," 1973, 1974; Palmer Museum of Art, co-guest curator of a major photo-history exhibition at 1988; HUB Formal Gallery, University Park, PA, co-guest curator of an exhibition of Henisch's own photographs, "People, Places, Patterns," 1989. Holder of eight patents, all on various aspects of semiconductor technology. Tem-Pres Research, Inc., member of scientific advisory board, 1966-70; Volunteers in Technical Assistance, member. Pennsylvania State University Press, committee chair, 1973-75. Consultant to Philco Corp., Polaroid Corp., Energy Conversion Devices, Inc., and Carborundum Co.

MEMBER: American Physical Society (fellow), American Photographic Historical Society (fellow), Institute of Physics (England; fellow), Royal Photographic Society (fellow).

AWARDS, HONORS: Honorary fellow of A74 Group of Photographers, Warsaw, Poland, 1975; D.Sc., University of Reading, 1979; Rudolf and Hertha Benjamin Award, American Photographic Historical Society, 1996, for The Painted Photograph, 1839-1914: Origins, Techniques, Aspirations.

WRITINGS:

PHOTOGRAPHY BOOKS; WITH WIFE, B. A. HENISCH

Chipmunk Portrait, Carnation Press (State College, PA), 1970.

The Photographic Experience, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1988.

The Photographic Experience, 1839-1914: Images and Attitudes, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1994.

The Painted Photograph, 1839-1914: Origins, Techniques, Aspirations, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1996.

Positive Pleasures; Early Photography and Humor, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1998.

The Photographic World and Humour of Cuthbert Bede, Edwin Mellen Press (Lewiston, NY), 2002.

OTHER

Metal Rectifiers, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1949.

(Editor) Semiconductor Materials, Butterworth (Woburn, MA), 1951.

Rectifying Semiconductor Contacts, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1957.

Electroluminescence, Pergamon (Oxford, England), 1962.

(Editor, with others) Silicon Carbide, Pergamon (Oxford, England), 1969.

Crystal Growth in Gels, Pennsylvania State University Press (University Park, PA), 1970, paperback edition, Dover Press (New York, NY), 1997.

Semiconductor Contacts: An Approach to Ideas and Models, Oxford University Press (Oxford, England), 1984.

Crystals in Gels and Liesegang Rings, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1988.

Periodic Precipitation: A Microcomputer Analysis of Transport and Reaction Processes in Diffusion Media, with Software Development, Pergamon (Oxford, England), 1990.

First Dance in Karlsbad (memoir), Carnation Press (State College, PA), 1993.

Editor of "International Series of Monographs on Semiconductors," Pergamon (Oxford, England), 1959-67. Author of nearly 150 research papers. Also contributor to journals of photo-history and related fields, sometimes under pseudonym Benjamin Spear. Founding editor, Materials Research Bulletin, 1968-93, and History of Photography, 1977-90; member of editorial board of Journal of the Physics of Chemical Solids,1957—, Journal of Solid State Electronics, 1958—, Physica Status Solidi, 1961-63, Penn State Studies, 1963-66, and Progress in Crystal Growth and Assessment.

The book Metal Rectifiers was published in a Russian translation; Electroluminescence and Crystal Growth in Gels were both published in Japanese and Russian. Henisch's 1993 memoir has been translated into German and Czech.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Research on Victorian photographer James Robertson.

SIDELIGHTS: Heinz K. Henisch once told CA that he studies "science as an exercise in aesthetics, and science as literature."

Henisch updated CA: "Early in 1996, the considerable holdings of the B. & H. Henisch Photo-History Collection were transferred to the B. & H. Henisch Photo-History Collection Exhibit Room of the Pattee Library."