David N. Pipkorn passed away at his home in Easley, South Carolina, on 9 May 2020, after a three-year struggle with pancreatic cancer.
He was born in Milwaukee, where he graduated from Shorewood High School in 1954. He was awarded a scholarship to Princeton University by the Princeton Club of Wisconsin. He graduated from Princeton in 1958 with a BSE in electrical engineering, engineering physics curriculum. He continued his education at the University of Illinois with an MS in physics (1960) and a PhD in physics (1964), and he was nominated to Sigma Xi research honorary. His PhD thesis was on the Mossbauer effect in iron under very high pressure. He then worked as a postdoctoral fellow in experimental physics for two years, performing the classified Nth Country Experiment with two other new postdoctoral students at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory of the University of California. They successfully designed a nuclear explosive without any nuclear training or using any classified information. He worked 1966–70 as a physicist in experimental physics there, conducting research using the Mossbauer effect with 10 publications of research results. He also was a part-time lecturer in solid-state physics and directed graduate student research at the lab.
From 1970 to 1973 David was an assistant professor in the physics department of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). From 1973 to 1977 he worked for Castle/Sybron Corporation in Rochester as a senior scientist in research and development doing product development. In 1977 he moved to Dayton, Ohio, where he worked until retirement in 1991 as principal scientist with Eastman Kodak Company. He worked in the ink-jet physics area. He had six patents and disclosures in that area.
David had a lifelong interest in science and nature. He had a keen sense of inquisitiveness and attention to detail that he applied to his research and to his daily life. He also had a lifelong interest in finance and investments; he received an MBA from RIT. Surviving are his wife of 60 years, a son and daughter, and two grandsons.
