Career
He contributed immensely to theoretical and experimental optics. With Emil Wolf he published the highly regarded book Optical Coherence and Quantum Optics. Mandel was born in Berlin, Germany, where his father had emigrated from Eastern Europe.
He received a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics and physics in 1947 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in nuclear physics in 1951 from Birkbeck College, University of London, in the United Kingdom.
He became a technical officer at Imperial Chemical Industries Limited in Welwyn, United Kingdom, in 1951. In 1955, he became a lecturer and, later, senior lecturer at Imperial College London, University of London.
He remained at Imperial until 1964, when he joined the University of Rochester as a professor of physics.