Obituary of Marjorie Anne Klenin

Marjorie Anne Klenin, Emerita Professor of Physics at North Carolina State University, passed away in Raleigh, North Carolina on January 19, 2008. She is survived by her sister Emily Klenin of Los Angeles, California.

Marjorie was born September 6, 1944, in Lancaster Pennsylvania. After graduating with a BA degree in Physics from Swarthmore College in 1965, she completed a PhD in theoretical condensed matter Physics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1970.

Following her PhD degree, she pursued research for five years in Germany, first at the Institut Max von Laue-Paul Langevin, Munich, and later at the Universität Saarlandes, Saarbrücken. She then returned to the US to take positions at Brookhaven National Laboratory and State University of New York at Stony Brook. In 1977, she joined the Physics Department at North Carolina State University where she remained as a tenured faculty member until the time of her retirement in Dec 2006. Marjorie a pioneer for her time in pursuing a physics career - was the first woman to be appointed a faculty member in the Physics Department at North Carolina State University. She lived to see the Department grow to have among the largest number of women on a Physics department faculty of any major research university in the US.

Her most cited papers date from her collaborative work in the late 1970’s on superconductivity, quadrupolar solids, magnetic systems and spin-glasses. Her research expertise was in theoretical condensed matter physics and statistical physics, with particular strengths in computer modeling, Monte Carlo simulation and neural network simulations. In the 1990’s she turned her attention and talents to the development of new ways of delivering instruction in introductory physics, particularly using computers in the algebra-based physics courses.

Marjorie’s friends considered her a true woman of the world . Her taste in art, music, clothing and food were always eclectic, unique and impeccable Returning to the States after living abroad, she continued her European habit of visiting the market daily for groceries. She doted on her pets and her dogs accompanied her whenever possible to the store, to work, and to visit the homes of friends. She was an accomplished pianist and her admonition about playing four-hand Schubert — keep going no matter what! — was a lesson she applied throughout her life. After her retirement, music became a sphere of unique importance to her, and she was performing for and with friends, and exploring the work of Brahms, up to the last months of her life. She was a talented amateur photographer inspired in part by antique camera equipment inherited from her father. She sewed, she read, and in summers she traveled, to Yucatan, to Hawaii, and again to Europe. Marjorie was an exceptional cook, and among the gifts she most enjoyed were culinary ones a case of good wine, a whole prosciutto, black truffles.

Marjorie truly enjoyed the simpler pleasures in life, and was always eager to make new discoveries, to experience new adventures. When asked, “What vodka is best, Polish or Russian?” she would resolutely answer Polish!, and proceed to tell the story of how she learned this fact while on a ship in the North Atlantic with an all-Polish crew. They sailed in bad weather, and being the only passenger who did not get seasick she had the opportunity to spend the entire trip sampling vodka with the crew. This is how we choose to remember Marjorie vibrant, laughing, embarking again on another unexpected new adventure.