Kenneth Charles Kulander ’65, 1943–2024

After spending a lifetime contributing to the fields of physics and chemistry, Kenneth Charles Kulander ’65 died June 15, 2024, at the age of 80. 

His most significant scientific achievements occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which led to his development of the re-scattering model, a groundbreaking achievement that the Swedish Nobel Academy acknowledged as foundational for the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physics.

He began his academic journey at Cornell College and then pursued a Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry at the University of Minnesota, where he met his wife, Monica.

Kulander’s career took him to various parts of the world, starting with a three-year stint at the Daresbury Laboratory in Warrington, England. In 1976 Kulander accepted a position as a staff scientist at the Theoretical Atomic and Molecular Physics Group at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. He took sabbaticals at the Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany, and the University of Colorado in Boulder. Despite retiring from his official position in 1999, Kenneth remained actively engaged in his work for another two decades. 

Beyond his career, Kulander pursued various hobbies. He excelled in skiing, swimming, sailing, and running, and was fond of reading and the opera. Kulander is survived by his wife, Monica, his twin brother, John, and two nephews.