J. Calvin Walker *61

Calvin Walker, retired professor of physics at Johns Hopkins University, died Jan. 15, 2016, of congestive heart failure, at age 80. Walker received a bachelor’s degree in physics from Harvard in 1956 and was awarded a Shaw fellowship that enabled foreign travel (during which he helped people flee from Hungary during the revolt against Soviet occupation).

He earned a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton in 1961. In the early 1960s, Walker went to Oxford and worked at the Harwell Innovation and Science Campus. He also consulted at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. He then joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins, from which he retired in 2001. He had served for six years as chair of the physics and astronomy departments.

Mark Robbins, professor of physics and a friend, said that Walker’s “endless energy and enthusiasm was a powerful driving force in the major expansion of our department in the late ’80s and was all-encompassing, pushing forward all the different fields in the department together.”

Walker is survived by his wife of 30 years, Ann; three children; and seven grandchildren. A previous marriage ended in divorce.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.