Recollection of Neil W. Ashcroft by Alan Denton

As one of Neil Ashcroft's graduate students in the late 80’s, I witnessed some exciting times in physics through the lens of his steady mentorship. Although high-temperature superconductors and quasicrystals were rather removed from my doctoral research on freezing of nonuniform fluids, my education was significantly broadened by Neil’s leadership roles in the condensed matter physics community. Despite his many service commitments, Neil always made time for weekly one-on-one and group meetings. Given his busy schedule, he would regularly work on weekends. He once suggested that we meet in his office at 7:00 on a Saturday morning. Summoning my courage, I drew the line and resisted. Thereafter, “Shall we meet at 7 in the morning?” became a running joke between us. My first APS March Meeting happened to be the Woodstock of Physics. Although Neil surely had much more important things on his mind, he attended my session and offered moral and hands-on support. In the age of overhead projectors, I had taped together transparencies for an overlay effect. When my unbalanced construction started to slide off the projector, Neil was there to hold it in place while I presented. Throughout my graduate student years, Neil supported my attendance at APS and Gordon conferences, as well as a Les Houches summer school, which proved very influential for my career. He also involved me in a collaboration with a visiting postdoc, who later would introduce me to my future spouse. While not one to micromanage his students' research, Neil had keen intuition and would always offer sage advice. For some years after I left Ithaca, we continued to correspond, but not so much in recent years. With a sense of inverted pride, however, I followed recent reports of high pressure experiments that appear to confirm some of his predictions about metallic hydrogen. Neil Ashcroft was a wonderful person, scientist, and mentor, whose inspiring legacy lives on.