Having Dr. M. as part of the KP family means having a highly awarded, internationally respected physicist, professor, and published author in our midst!
Charles M. was born on June 13, 1932 in Jackson, Michigan. Ever since he was a young boy and received a chemistry set as a gift, Charles was interested in science. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1952, and then earned his master’s and doctorate in physics from Princeton University shortly after.
While at a conference in Denmark, he met his late wife of 57 years, Susanne. They met and married on Charles’ birthday in 1959 in Copenhagen. Soon after, they relocated to the States, where Charles taught in Princeton’s Physics Department. In 1963, Charles and Susanne moved to Montgomery County, Maryland where they lived for 47 years and raised their family. Charles spent a majority of his career as an undergraduate and graduate professor in the University of Maryland, College Park’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, where he remains professor emeritus. Charles has four adult children – three sons and one daughter – and five grandchildren.
Charles has had an impressive and important career in the field of Physics, specifically general relativity and cosmology. He has received several prestigious awards, including the Einstein Medal in 2015. Last year, Charles donated personal letters between himself and world-renowned physicist and author Stephen Hawking to the University of Maryland, where they were auctioned for nearly $300,000 to fund an endowment to support research in gravitational physics.
Charles and Susanne moved to Kensington Park just about a year ago. Susanne bravely battled Parkinson’s for over twenty years before she passed in September of this year. He and Susanne had adventures in all different parts of the world, but their favorite place was Denmark – Susanne’s home country and the place that they fell in love.