George was born in Vienna, Austria in 1926. As a young Jewish adolescent, George experienced the nazification of Austria. In 1938 he was sent via Kindertransport to an orphanage in the Netherlands. In 1939, his family were fortunate to receive visas to emigrate to the United States. George, his parents and his sister settled in Sacramento where he met his future wife, Joyce Webb.In 1944, George was “voluntarily drafted” into the US Army at age 18. As a native German speaker, he was assigned to the US Counter-Intelligence Corps. After leaving the service in 1947, he enrolled in UC Berkeley, where he received a Masters degree in physics.

George and Joyce married in 1948 and had four children Peter, David, Nina and Jack. When George graduated from UC Berkeley, the family moved to the Carmel Highlands and George became a faculty member at the Naval Postgraduate Academy. In 1962, George and Joyce’s son David died of lymphoma. George then enrolled in Stanford University and received a Ph.D. in biophysics, focusing on cancer treatment. He was appointed to the faculty of the Stanford School of Medicine in 1966. George was a founding member of the Hyperthermia Society and was President of the Radiation Research Society 1998-1999. During his career, he published over 200 research papers, served on numerous NIH research panels and received many national and international honors. He retired from Stanford in 1992. In parallel to his scientific work, George and Joyce became deeply interested in Mayan archeology and they traveled frequently to Mexico and Guatemala. George and Joyce built a house near Lake Atitlan in Guatemala where they spent several months each year for more than 30 years. After George and Joyce retired they moved back to the Carmel Highlands and began second careers as authors. George published five books, including his autobiography, The Lottery, and a fictionalized biography of Alan Turing. George’s beloved wife Joyce died in 2016. George is survived by his children, Peter, Nina and Jack; their partners, Susan Hahn, Pierre Lessard and Judy Greengard; four grandsons and seven great-grandchildren, and his dear dog, a Border Collie named Jessie. George was greatly loved and will be greatly missed. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to Guatemala Friends Scholarship Program (guatemalafriends.org)

A named lecture and annual award was formed by STM in his name to honor scientists who have contributed to improving clinical applications of thermal therapies. His contributions to STM were great and he will be missed by all.