On his Stanford website, astrophysicist Jeffrey Willick liked to post cosmic questions: "Is the universe flat? What is the nature of the 'dark matter' believed to constitute 90 percent of the total mass of the universe?" Sadly, the inquisitive assistant professor of physics, who specialized in astronomy and the structure of the universe, won't be answering those questions.
He was the victim of a freak accident on June 18 when a red 2000 Mustang GT veered off a highway and cut across a parking lot in Englewood, N.J., slamming into a Starbucks coffee shop where the scientist was working on his laptop computer. Pinned between the vehicle and a wall, Willick, 40, was pronounced dead at nearby Hackensack University Medical Center. The Englewood police charged the driver of the car, who reportedly suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of Army service during the Vietnam War, with driving while intoxicated and launched a criminal investigation.
Willick, who grew up in Teaneck, N.J., had traveled East to be with his father, psychiatrist and Columbia University lecturer Martin Willick, for Father's Day.
Willick had been at Stanford since 1995 and had written 21 scientific articles. He earned bachelor's degrees in chemistry and physics from Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude in 1981. After teaching high school physics for a year, he earned his doctorate in physics at UC-Berkeley in 1991. He was a postdoc at Carnegie Observatory from 1991 to 1995.
At Stanford, "Jeff mentored all of his students as if they were his children," Blas Cabrera, PhD '75, former chair of the physics department, said at a memorial service. Noting that Willick's studies of the matter density of the universe and of galaxy distribution are "renowned within the cosmology community," Cabrera added that Willick was a "true gentleman and excellent teacher" who in recent publications had demonstrated "the most important trait of a true scientist -- absolute scientific honesty." Cabrera said that two astrophysics colleagues in the department, Art Walker and Roger Romani, had reminded him that "gentle persistence was one of Jeff's strong points" and recalled how much fun Willick was having with his young son. When he was reappointed to a second term as assistant professor, Cabrera said, fellow physicists from around the country praised Willick's important work on cosmology and strongly recommended reappointment and later promotion to tenure.
Willick is survived by two children, Jason, 6, and Emily, 4, and by his wife, Ellen Schneider, a Stanford pediatrician who is expecting their third child this fall. The family lives on campus, and neighbors and colleagues say Willick's death has stunned that close community.
