In memory of Rosa Nikolaevna Ivanova (1925–2018)

Rosa Nikolaevna Ivanova passed away on June 8, 2018. She was a highly skilled specialist in the physics and engineering of IR radiation, optoelectronic instrumentation, and thermal vision, a participant in the Great Patriotic War (World War II), and a staff member of S. I. Vavilov State Optical Institute (GOI) from 1953 to 2001.
Rosa Nikolaevna Ivanova was born on March 7, 1925 in the village of Ludina Gora, near Moscow. She finished her eighth year of junior high school in 1941 in Leningrad. She lived through the Leningrad blockade in the winter of 1941–42. She voluntarily enlisted in the Red Army in 1942, serving as a nursing sister and then senior nursing sister at the surgical field hospital at Volkhov and the Third Baltic and First Ukrainian Fronts. For fortitude and courage manifested in saving the lives of Russian troops, she was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the medals “For Battle Service,” “For the Defense of Leningrad,” and “For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945.” Ivanova’s military career ended in September 1945 in Austria. After being demobilized with the rank of Second Lieutenant, Medical Service, she continued her studies in night school for working youth and worked at the experimental-production shop of the Central Scientific Research Institute of Timber-Hauling Apparatus and Hydraulic Engineering. She enrolled in 1947 at the V. I. Ul’yanov (Lenin) Leningrad Electrical Engineering Institute and graduated in 1953 as a specialist in electrical engineering physics. Starting in 1953, she worked at GOI successively in the positions of senior laboratory assistant (1953–55), junior scientific associate (1955–58), senior and then chief engineer (1958–67), deputy head of laboratory (1967–85), and head of the Thermal-Vision and Iconics Laboratory (1985–91). She worked as deputy chief of the GOI Museum during 1992–2001.
From her first years of working at GOI, R. N. Ivanova showed that she had initiative and was a competent coworker. She actively participated in the creation of a number of samples of special thermal viewers (ThVs), including a gunsight for a fighter plane, with a basic IR rangefinder unique in accuracy, noise immunity, and degree of automation. She participated in flight testing of the gunsight on the MIG-17 aircraft. She made a substantial contribution to the development of the first samples of ThVs for terrain reconnaissance. She participated as senior executive in the development of a ThV for detecting defects in layered materials. She was one of the inventors of an energy-calculation technique for ThVs. The brightness of the sky at altitudes of up to 30 km was experimentally studied under her management by lifting the measurement apparatus on balloons. These results made it possible to clarify the requirements on the prospective ThVs being developed.
Besides creating special-purpose devices, Rosa Nikolaevna was the scientific manager of work on the creation of industrial ThVs for monitoring the thermal regime of atomic reactors and for detecting defects in the stators of high-power turbine generators—in particular, those installed at the Sayano–Shushenskaya Hydroelectric Plant. She took part in experiments with the Stator ThV at the Élektrosila and Élektrotyazhmash Factories (Kharkov), which showed that it was promising to use the thermal-vision method to monitor the assembly quality of the rotors and stators of turbo-generators, as well as in the development of portable pyrometers for monitoring the thermal regime of various objects (high-voltage circuits, railroad-car equipment, etc.).
During 1970–80, R. N. Ivanova participated in large-scale GOI projects on the possibility of using thermal vision in medicine for the early diagnosis of complex disorders. She directly participated in developing new principles for constructing ThVs; ways to estimate their technical parameters; and laboratory, factory, and interindustrial testing of experimental samples of medical ThVs—in particular, the Yantar’ fast-response medical ThV, the Rubin and Raduga ThVs, a mobile ThV complex, etc.Most of this work was carried out in close collaboration with experimental specialist physicians of the Petrov Oncology Scientific Research Institute, the Dzhanelidze Acute Care Scientific Research Institute, and Mariinsky Hospital.
As a prestigious and highly qualified specialist, R. N. Ivanova, besides participating in scientific research and experimental design work at GOI, was the scientific manager of a special section on “Thermal-vision devices for civilian purposes” and carried out scientific–engineering management of work to create ThVs at the Azov Optomechanical Factory, the Leningrad Optomechanical Firm, the Arsenal Factory (Kiev), and at the Krasnogorsk Mechanical Factory Central Design Office. She is the author or coauthor of more than 30 scientific works and 20 inventions, including a number of foreign patents, and numerous reports at all-Union and international conferences. Ivanova, working at the GOI Museum, made a great contribution to the preparation and systematization of materials on the activity of the leading GOI scholars and the institute as a whole.
Rosa Nikolaevna’s achievements were recognized by the Order of the October Revolution, the Veteran of Labor medal and title, and a number commemorative medals. R. N. Ivanova successfully combined her scientific, technical, and organizational activity with social activism. She actively participated in the work of the D. S. Rozhdestvenskı˘ Optical Society and in organizing all-Union and international conferences on “Thermal Vision in Medicine and Industry.”
R. N. Ivanova deserved authority and great respect for her talent as an organizer, her benign relationship to the environment, her readiness to assist in a difficult situation, and her great life experience.
The cherished memory of the remarkable scholar and person Rosa Nikolaevna Ivanova will be forever preserved in the hearts of the GOI staff and her colleagues and students.

Board of Directors,
AO S. I. Vavilov State Optical Institute
D. S. Rozhdestvenskiı˘ Optical Society
Editorial Staff and Editorial Office,
Opticheskiı˘ Zhurnal