Dr. Sidney Sylvester Medley, 82, of Princeton Junction passed away peacefully on Sunday, April 14, 2024 at the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro.
Born in Vancouver, BC on July 12, 1941, he was raised in Richmond, BC and was a resident of Princeton Junction for many years.
Sid received his PhD in Physics from the University of British Columbia, in Canada 1968. He won a post-doc at Oxford University in England where he worked in the field of plasma diagnostics at the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority at Culham Laboratory from 1969 to 1970. He then went to the Fusion Research Center at the University of Texas, from 1971 to 1976 where he worked on the Texas Turbulent Torus. Sid became a member of the research staff at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab in 1977 where he continued to work as an experimentalist on the major tokamaks such as PLT, PBX,TFTR, and NSTX for the next 38 years. Sid worked in many varied fields throughout his career such as laser interferometry, ion spectrometry, magnetic probe measurements, fusion gamma diagnostics, neutron diagnostics, and fast camera applications. Sid’s main focus at PPPL was in measuring ion temperatures using the charge-exchange diagnostic. He contributed many innovative detector designs and was considered to be a world authority in the field. His expertise led him to participate in collaborations at many other fusion laboratories around the world. He installed his diagnostic on several other tokamaks such as MAST at Culham, LHD in Japan, Alcator C-mod at MIT, and ATF at Oak Ridge National Lab.
Sid loved working outdoors on his property and was known for his Texas BBQ ribs. He was a great cook and loved all genres of music. He was a loving devoted son, husband, brother, and friend who will be missed by everyone who knew and loved him.
Predeceased by his parents, Sidney G. and Helen (Bohn) Medley; and his stepson, Gerald Petrillo; he is survived by his loving wife of 24 years, June (Bitler) Medley; his brother, Jim Medley and his wife, Dianne; his sister, Louise Peterson and her husband, Ken; his stepdaughter, Donna Buckley and her husband, Jonathan; granddaughter, Brenna Buckley; brother-in-law, David Bitler and his wife, Anne; nephew, Kristofer Peterson; and his best friends, Lane Roquemore and Jim Miller.
Services are private and under the direction of the Buklad-Merlino Memorial Homes, Hamilton.