Steven L. Detweiler ’69

Steve’s death was both startling and sad. A professor of physics at the University of Florida in Gainesville, he died Feb. 8, 2016, during his morning run. In recent years, Steve had become an accomplished runner, proudly completing the Boston Marathon in 3:43, and was preparing for the 2016 event.

His distinguished post-Princeton career included a doctorate from the University of Chicago and postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Maryland and the California Institute of Technology. After teaching at Yale, he spent the past 34 years in the University of Florida’s astrophysics group. He was widely published in the areas of gravitation and black holes, and the recent astronomical detection of gravitational waves using his suggested method of discovery validated his life’s work.

He often commented early in his Princeton days that he realized he had found the right school when a Firestone librarian told him the obscure 18th-century text he was searching for was not in the rare-books area, but in the open stacks!

In addition to the students and colleagues who valued him greatly, he is survived by his wife, Sandy Fisher; daughter Kate; son David; two grandsons; and two sisters. His brother, Peter ’68, predeceased him by only two weeks.  Steve had an extraordinary life and has left an enduring legacy.