Samuel Blum

Samuel Emil Blum, August 28, 1920-January 9, 2013.
Beloved husband of Zieda Brathwaite, father of Andrea, Joey, and Bessie Blum, Charelle and Nayda Mariette, grandfather of Ruby and Sophie Blum, Carl and Nayda Mariette, and great-grandfather of Crystal, Jasmine, and Justin Mariette, and Geraldo Gutierrez..
Born in the Bronx, NY, grew up in Piscataway Township, New Jersey, longtime resident of White Plains, NY. As a commissioned officer of the U.S. Navy, he was trained as a meteorologist and served aboard the USS Badoeng Strait as a senior officer and weatherman. Blum received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 1950, and went on to a long career as a research scientist, including 31 years at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where his most notable achievements included the development of the injection laser, and the ultraviolet excimer laser used in surgical and dental procedures (best known for LASIK surgery), for which he and his co-inventors were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002, among many other honors, including the 2004 R.W. Wood Prize from the Optical Society of America, and, most recently, the 2013 Russ Prize from the National Academy of Engineering