Raymond (Reuven) L. Boxman received his S.B. and
S.M. degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1969 from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, and his Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1973. He was introduced to “vacuum
arcs”, which became his career specialty, while a cooperative student at the
General Electric Company in Philadelphia,
and “triggered vacuum gaps” became the topic of his S.M. thesis, while laser
interferometic measurement of electron and vapor densities in a vacuum arc
became the topic of his Ph.D. thesis. Boxman worked as a Senior Research
Engineer at GE where he investigated the behavior of vacuum arcs in high
current switches from 1973 until 1975, at which time he took up a position on
the Faculty of Engineering at Tel
Aviv University.
Boxman is the co-founder of the Electrical Discharge and Plasma Laboratory at
TAU, which he currently directs. During the past two decades, Boxman has
focused his research work on the application of the vacuum arc to the
production of thin films. In 1984 Boxman and his colleagues were awarded the
Joffee Foundation Award by the International Union of Surface Finishing for
their breakthrough work on pulsed vacuum arc deposition. In 1989 Boxman was
named a Fellow of the IEEE for his contribution to vacuum arc theory and
applications. In 2000, he was received the Walter Dyke Award from the
International Symposia on Discharges and Electrical Insulation in Vacuum, for
“his outstanding body of work in the field of electrical discharges in vacuum,
in particular for his contributions to the physics, technology, and
applications of vacuum arc plasmas”.
At Tel
Aviv University,
Boxman is the incumbent of Kranzberg Chair in Plasma Engineering. Prof. Boxman serves
in several administrative roles at TAU, including Director of the Electrical
Discharge and Plasma Lab, Head of the Materials Engineering Program, Chairman
of the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies in the School of Electrical
Engineering, and Chairman of the Faculty of
Engineering Research Committee. Boxman served as Secretary of the Permanent
International Scientific Committee of the International Symposia on Discharges
and Electrical Insulation in Vacuum, and as a member of the Program Committee
and Session Chairman for the Hard Coatings and PVD Symposium of the
International Conference on Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films. Boxman
founded and was first Chairman of the Israel Plasma Science and Technology
Association. He served as Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Plasma
Science, and as the guest editor for special issues on vacuum discharge plasmas,
and on plasma deposition. He was a Member of the Editorial Board of Plasma
Chemistry and Plasma Processing. Boxman was Chief Editor of the "Handbook
of Vacuum Arc Science and Technology" which involved the coordinated
efforts of 24 authors in seven countries. In addition he has presented ~300
scientific papers at conferences or in technical journals, and has been awarded
ten patents.
Prof. Boxman is married to Edith, an economist
and manager at Bank Leumi, with whom he has four children, ages 18-28. In his spare time he
enjoys hiking, swimming, gardening and amateur radio.