Howard A. Scott ’76

Howard A. Scott ’76, Ph.D., died November 25, 2024, at Stanford University Hospital a few weeks shy of his 70th birthday from complications arising from heart surgery. He worked in multiple fields of physics— from atomic physics to hydrodynamics and radiative properties—at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. He was born to Harold and Naomi Scott and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, one of four boys. At Dartmouth he graduated in 1975, majored in math and physics, and was Phi Beta Kappa. A talented bassoonist, he studied for a term at the Austro-American Institute. He maintained lifelong connections with friends from Phi Tau. He excelled as a bridge player and became an avid backpacker and skier. As a recipient of the prestigious Churchill scholarship, Howard studied astrophysics for one year at Cambridge University before his graduate program at Cornell University, where he earned his Ph.D. in astrophysics and met Elizabeth Sufit. They quickly became partners in backpacking, folk dancing, and life. Howard worked at Sandia National Laboratory from 1982 to 1984, then spent two years doing research and teaching at Virginia Polytechnic Institute. In 1986 he returned to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and helped develop a code to investigate and model atomic and high-energy systems. Howard was predeceased by his parents and older brother Bennett; he is survived by Liz; children Hannah and Samuel; brother Ronald and his wife, Ina; brother Larry; brothers- and sisters-in-law Robert, Carl, Susan, and Debbie; and nieces and nephews.