Stanley Martin Flatté
Stanley Martin Flatté was an American physicist who studied particles and how waves move through air, the ocean, and the Earth. He earned a B.S. in physics from Caltech in 1962 and a Ph.D. in physics from UC Berkeley in 1966. After five years at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, he joined UC Santa Cruz in 1971 and stayed there until his retirement in 2004. At UCSC he worked with the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, the Institute of Marine Sciences, and the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. He joined the government research group JASON in 1970.
In particle physics, Flatté developed the Flatté Parametrization, a method still used to describe how some mesons decay. In ocean acoustics, his work helped improve understanding of how sound travels in the ocean, and in the 1990s he contributed to the Acoustic Thermometry of Ocean Climate (ATOC) project, which aimed to measure the ocean’s average temperature with sound.
In atmospheric optics, he studied how light moves through turbulent air, working with Claire Max, a leader in adaptive optics at UCSC. In seismology, he studied how seismic waves scatter in the deep Earth; his collaboration with Ru-Shan Wu, who joined UCSC in 1986, helped develop techniques now used in the oil industry.
Flatté died in 2007 and was survived by his wife, a son, a daughter, and six grandchildren.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 12:29 (CET).