David Schramm

David Norman Schramm (October 25, 1945 – December 19, 1997) was an American astrophysicist and educator, and one of the world’s foremost experts on the Big Bang theory. Schramm was a pioneer in establishing particle astrophysics as a vibrant research field. He was particularly well known for the study of Big Bang nucleosynthesis and its use as a probe of dark matter (both baryonic and non-baryonic) and of neutrinos. He also made important contributions to the study of cosmic rays, supernova explosions, heavy-element nucleosynthesis, and nuclear astrophysics generally.

David Schramm earned his master’s degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1967. He earned a Ph.D in physics at Caltech in 1971 under Willy Fowler and Gerry Wasserburg. After a brief time as faculty at the University of Texas at Austin where he also played Prop for the Austin Huns Rugby Club alongside Pat Lochridge, he accepted a professorship at the University of Chicago, where he spent the rest of his career.

Schramm received the Robert J. Trumpler Award of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in 1974, the Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy from the American Astronomical Society in 1978, and he was awarded the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize from the American Physical Society in 1993. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986.

Schramm, an avid private pilot, died on 19 December 1997, when his Swearingen-Fairchild SA-226 crashed near Denver, Colorado. He was the sole occupant of the aircraft. At the time of his death he was Vice President for Research and Louis Block Distinguished Service Professor in the Physical Sciences at the University of Chicago.

Read Michael S. Turner’s Biographical Memoir of David Schramm here.