World-renowned astrophysicist Dr. Dimitri Mihalas, PhD, passed away in his sleep at his home on November 21, 2013 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He donated his body to the University of New Mexico Medical School and his library to New Mexico Tech.
His grandfather, fleeing Greece in the 1930s, brought his family to the United States. Dimitri was born on March 20, 1939 in Los Angeles, California where he grew up. He received his B.A., with Highest Honors, in three majors; Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy, from the University of California at Los Angeles at age 20. He received his Ph.D. in Astronomy and Physics from the California Institute of Technology four years later.
In 1963, Dimitri joined the faculty of the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. In the following three decades, he was a professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Chicago, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was the George C. McVittie Professor of Astronomy for thirteen years. He worked for many years as a Senior Scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado; was an Astronomer at the National Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak, New Mexico; and was a laboratory fellow at the Los Alamos National Laboratory until 2011.
Dimitri was a pioneer in astrophysics and computational physics and remained a world leader in the fields of radiation transport, radiation hydrodynamics and astrophysical quantitative spectroscopy for most of his career. His broad knowledge and immense contributions earned him election to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1981 at age 42, fifteen years earlier than the usual age of entry. In addition, he earned many other distinguished awards. Dimitri had an exceptional record of both quantity and quality of work, and developed new and far-reaching methodologies yielding results of great importance. He made outstanding contributions to the field of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Besides many high-quality papers, he authored or co-authored seven books and co-edited three others. Among them, three of his books have been used as textbooks for both undergraduate and graduate students worldwide and translated into other languages such as Russian and Chinese. His book, Foundations of Radiation Hydrodynamics, has become the “bible” of the radiation hydrodynamics community, especially at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and the Naval Research Laboratory. Dimitri also published several other non-science poetry books, including Coming Back From the Dead, Dream Shadows, and A Distant Summons.
Dimitri’s colleagues and graduate students held him in high appreciation and expressed their admiration for him at the “International Conference in Honor of Dimitri Mihalas for his Lifetime Scientific Contributions on the Occasion of his 70th Birthday,” held at Boulder in late March 2009. A symposium was published following the conference. In the December 2013 issue of The Huffington Post, Dimitri was #5 in the line-up of “Thirty-nine Brilliant Scientific Minds we Lost in 2013 That Changed the World Forever.”
Dimitri was diagnosed with depression and bipolar disorder when he was in his 40s, although he thought signs of the conditions dated to his childhood. He wrote about his experiences in essays such as “Surviving Depression and Bipolar Disorder” and “A Primer on Depression and Bipolar Disorder” in 2002. He was determined to be open about his conditions in the hopes that it would lessen the stigma of mental illness. And, indeed, these essays have had as profound an impact as his professional textbooks and articles. A former student, feeling that Dimitri played an extremely important part in his own wellbeing, especially at the time when he was a student, placed Dimitri's writings on bipolar disorder on an online blog, HealthyPlace, a website for the Bipolar Disorder Community, ensuring open access to all.
Dimitri was invited to attend Quaker Meeting by a friend when he was working at the University of Colorado and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He became a member of Boulder Friends Meeting in 1977. In 1986, the depressive side of his bipolar condition began to get the better of him, and he struggled with suicidal ideas. Medication, psychiatry and the outpouring of friendship and spiritual support from the Boulder Friends community carried him through, and he discovered that, in his words, “It is in the deepest darkness that one can most easily see light, God's Light, your Inner Light. I was led to the amazing conclusion that the dark journey is not a test, a trial, or a punishment, it is a gift!”
In 1996, Dimitri wrote a pamphlet, published by Pendle Hill, titled, Depression and Spiritual Growth. Its purpose, in Dimitri’s words, “is to describe the transition a depression victim can take from despair to a grounded place for spiritual growth”. In it, Dimitri offered details of his own journey and asserted that the path to healing and wholeness is possible by embracing God’s gift of Grace. He also placed great importance on the role of Quaker Meeting as a source of spiritual and practical support.
Dimitri spent several years attending Urbana-Champaign Friends Meeting in the mid-nineties, before returning to Boulder. He moved to Los Alamos in the late nineties and began attending Santa Fe Friends Meeting, transferring his membership there in 2012. Although he attended Meeting irregularly, Dimitri is remembered by Santa Fe Friends with fondness and appreciation. They are grateful for his eloquent and profound messages about coping with mental illness, which were comforting to those who found themselves in situations with similar challenges.
Friends from Boulder and Urbana Friends Meetings were similarly moved, and deeply affected by Dimitir’s writings and honesty about mental illness. One Friend remembers that Dimitri always appreciated Quakers’ inclusivity and insistence on personal experience as testimony. For Friends who knew him as a member of their Meetings, Dimitri remains an inspiration: a brilliant scientist who shared, with joy and honesty, his own dark journey through depression, which led him to seek out a spiritual path. His life is an affirmation of our oneness in our search for wholeness. He reminds us that “we all have broken places; places through which Grace and Light and Life itself can penetrate our souls, places through which we can reach out from the prisons of our lives to touch one another and touch God.”
Dimitri began working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the late nineteen-nineties. In accordance with his Quaker beliefs, he refused any work related to nuclear weapons development. He retired from his position as Laboratory Fellow in the Applied Physics department in 2011. Throughout his long career, he gave generously of himself to all with whom he interacted. As an advisor, role model, confidant, and friend, he saw each person as an individual, acknowledging strengths, helping overcome weaknesses, giving encouragement, and enthusiastically praising their success. He touched the lives and careers of many students, colleagues and friends and has left a lasting legacy to be cherished by all who knew him. He is survived by his wife, Anke Mihalas, his daughter, Alexandra and his son, Michael.