Head and shoulders image of Dr. Leon Katz, director of the Linear Accelerator Laboratory and professor of Physics.

Bio/Historical Note: Dr. Leon Katz was born in 1910 in Lutsk (then part of the Russian Empire; after World War I part of Poland), He emigrated to Canada in 1920 and was reunited with his father who emigrated in 1914. During these early years he studied at Toronto Central Technical School to become an electrician, however through an exchange program with Queen’s University he was able to transfer into a science program working part-time to afford tuition. Dr. Katz completed his BSc and MSc degrees at Queen’s University, and received a PhD from the California Institute of Technology. He specialized in Accelerator Physics, RF Systems and, in later life, Chaos Theory. After working for Westinghouse Electric Company on radar equipment for aircraft in Pittsburgh, Dr. Katz moved to Saskatoon in 1946 to become an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan. In collaboration with Drs. Haslam and Jones, he was part of the team that was successful in bring a Betatron to the U of S. The Betatron was used as the first radiation therapy facility in the province and also for research. He was the founding director of the Saskatchewan Accelerator Laboratory from 1964-1975 that eventually led to the formation of the Canadian Light Source. Dr. Katz received an honourary Doctor of Laws degree from the U of S in 1990. Dr. Katz died in Saskatoon in 2004 at age 94.