Karl H. Illinger *60

Born in 1934, Karl died April 11, 2017.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1956 and earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Princeton in 1960. He was an associate professor of chemistry at Tufts from 1960 to 2004.

His early work was in the areas of intermolecular forces and collisional perturbation of molecular spectra, with special expertise in microwave spectroscopy. He extended his investigations to the topic of infrared intensities shortly after he arrived at Tufts. Over the years he became an expert in the field of biological effects of radiation, co-authoring the “Report of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council on the Navy’s Nonionizing Radiation Research Program” in 1974.

In 1981, he edited a book titled Biological Effects of Nonionizing Radiation, which was published as part of the American Chemical Society’s Symposium Series that was highly cited. In his later years he turned his attention to the problem of global warming, involving both theoretical and experimental work on infrared “radiative forcings” of a wide range of industrial gases proposed as replacements for ozone-damaging chlorofluorocarbons.

Graduate alumni memorials are prepared by the APGA.