RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. (May 8, 2008)--Very few of us know what it feels like to solve a problem that others have been working on for half of a century.
Dr. Kenneth Kelton, a 1976 Arkansas Tech University graduate, knows that feeling.
On Saturday, May 10, he will be inducted into the Arkansas Tech Hall of Distinction as a distinguished alumnus during the 10 a.m. spring commencement ceremony at John E. Tucker Coliseum.
In 2003, Kelton led a NASA project that validated a 50-year hypothesis developed by Sir Charles Frank of the United Kingdom for how liquid metals resist turning into solids.
The findings challenged theories about how crystals form and had important consequences for both biological systems and materials. For his work, Kelton was featured on the cover of Physics Today.
“I was, of course, thrilled when the experiment that I had designed to prove (Sir Charles Frank’s) hypothesis worked,” said Kelton. “But I was and remain even more excited from what we learned in addition; I knew that our experimental findings went beyond what Frank had argued. They have demonstrated that nucleation processes are much more complicated and rich than anyone had ever thought. Because nucleation is such a fundamental phenomena, controlling processes that range from phase transformations in the early universe to those in biological systems, our deepening understanding might have widespread consequences.”
Proving that hypothesis was a crowning achievement in a career that began when he graduated from Arkansas Tech with a mathematics degree in 1976. Two years later, he earned a Master of Science degree in physics from the University of Tennessee. Kelton went on to attend Harvard University, where he earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in applied physics.
Two years as a post doctoral fellow at Harvard led Kelton to become a member of the physics faculty at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., in 1985.
By 1994, he was a full professor. In 2006, he was named the university’s first Arthur Holly Compton Professor in Arts and Science. The prestigious professorship is named for the 1927 Nobel Prize winner.
Kelton was born in Hot Springs on Aug. 3, 1954, to parents John Franklin Kelton and Helen Marie McClard Kelton. He traces his interest in science back to a very early age and a helping hand from his older sister, Shirley.
“Shirley was eighteen years older than me and played an essential role in first encouraging and nurturing my science interest,” said Kelton. “On my seventh birthday, she gave me my first chemistry set and in subsequent years would give me rocket models and other science kits. In the eighth grade, I won first place in the state competition for a science fair project on mineralogy, which had grown out of my interests in dinosaurs and paleontology. More important than winning, however, was the experience of meeting the best budding young scientists in Arkansas and learning about their interests.”
Kelton’s passion for science blossomed when he was a student at Russellville High School. As is often the case in a young person’s life, a mentor stepped forward to give Kelton direction.
“By the time I reached high school, I was certain that I was interested in a scientific career, but I wasn’t sure in which field,” said Kelton. “An influential teacher in Russellville High School, Ray Booher, recognized my interests in math and science and encouraged me to think about becoming a physicist. At that time, calculus was not taught as part of the high school curriculum. Mr. Booher took time at the end of his day to meet with me and introduce me to the concepts of differential and integral calculus.”
Kelton graduated from Russellville High School in 1972 and enrolled at Arkansas Tech University. Selecting a college was easy --- Kelton’s path to Arkansas Tech was established before he even entered high school.
“Even when I was in junior high school, it was clear that I was going to try to go to college,” said Kelton. “My dad was a carpenter and approaching retirement; he knew that he did not have the funds to send me to college. He had heard that Arkansas Tech provided a good education, so in 1968 he moved to Russellville.
“He was right about Tech --- it provided a safe place to grow and develop, and gave me a sound foundation in math and physics,” continued Kelton. “It provided something extremely valuable that is difficult to find at larger research universities --- faculty mentoring. Dr. (Charles) Bronco and Mr. (James) Willcutt in the Physics Department, Mr. (Charles) Pearson, Mr. (John) Hopper, Dr. (Jack) Hamm and many others in the Math Department always had an open door for any students who wanted or needed to talk with them. I don’t know how they managed to do this while keeping up with their other responsibilities.”
Kelton said that personal attention has a strong influence on the way that he works with his college students at Washington University today.
“Their lesson was not lost on me,” said Kelton. “I have always appreciated the importance of undergraduate education. I have enjoyed teaching undergraduate courses and I have always had undergraduates working in my labs. I recently became chair of the Physics Department at Washington and during my first year I have instituted several changes to improve the undergraduate education experience of our majors. I am working to find ways to provide some of the flavor of my Tech experience at a major research university.”
Kelton has published 220 papers in academic journals, and he and co-author A.L. Greer of Cambridge University (U.K.) are near completion of a book entitled “Nucleation in Physical and Biological Systems.”
Collaborations with his European colleagues have been a hallmark of Kelton’s career. He has served as a visiting professor at the Universite’ de Cergy-Pointoise in France and both visiting scholar and visiting fellow at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. In 1993, Cambridge named Kelton a Fellow Commoner in its Churchill College.
Away from the laboratory and the classroom, Kelton is a supporting member of the St. Louis Zoo, the St. Louis Science Center, the St. Louis Art Museum, the St. Louis History Museum, the St. Louis Academy of Science and the Harvard Club in St. Louis.
Kelton and his wife, 1976 Tech graduate Emily Brown Kelton, have been married for 32 years. They have two sons: Franklin and James.
