Professor Cyril Broude was born in Liverpool, England in 1933. He received his training at Liverpool University and obtained his PhD degree in 1957 in experimental nuclear physics. He did post-graduate research at Iowa State University, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He served for eight years with the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories, Atomic Energy of Canada, where he, in 1966, attained the rank of senior research officer. Cyril maintained close collaborative ties with Chalk River during his entire scientific career while developing scientific collaboration with leading nuclear physics laboratories including the MPI fur Kernphysik in Heidelberg, Centre de Recherches Nucleaires in Strasbourg, Nuclear Structure Facility of the University of Rochester.
Cyril joined the Weizmann Institute Department of Nuclear Physics in 1969 as an Associate Professor. Cyril's interest and expertise was to design and eventually construct the proper equipment for experiments. He was superb in this and people setting up an experiment always wished to have him on their team. When Gvirol Goldring retired as head of the Accelerator Laboratory, Cyril was appointed to replace him and he served in this function from 1987 to 1993.
Here is an instance which illuminates Cyril's special talents. When computers first became available commercially, the Institute distributed a number of them, and one was placed in the accelerator control room. Nobody knew how to handle it. One day Cyril came in and busied himself with the computer. After that everybody could operate the computer without any preparation or explanation. Eventually it transpired that a number of US laboratories had similar computers with systems like Cyril's, but those systems had to be learned and had keyboard shortcuts that had to be remembered. A far cry from what Cyril had prepared for the accelerator lab.
Cyril died in Canada in 2016. He was survived by his wife Esther and his three children.