Anne Kernan

Distinguished Professor of Physics Emerita Anne Kernan passed away on May 11, 2020. She was influential in founding and building the experimental high energy physics group and served as Chair of the Physics Department, as Vice Chancellor for Research, and as Dean of the Graduate Division. Within the high energy physics community she was known as an innovative, kind, and generous group leader who worked at the Lawrence Radiation Laboratory (now the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory or LBNL), Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), CERN, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab).

Anne was born in Dublin, Ireland on January 15, 1933, the second of four children to Annie Connor and Frederick Kernan. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from University College Dublin at age 19 in 1952. She was the first woman to earn a First Class Honours Degree in Physics and was the only female in her graduating class. She continued her studies there and obtained her Ph.D. in Physics in 1957. Her dissertation was on the interactions of protons and kaons.

Anne spent several years lecturing at University College Dublin before taking up research positions at LBNL and SLAC, where she investigated heavy baryon resonances and electroweak kaon decays. In 1967 she joined the Department of Physics (now Physics and Astronomy) at UC Riverside as a Lecturer and was appointed as an Associate Professor in 1968, becoming the first woman to receive tenure in the Department. She taught all aspects of physics, including Atomic and Nuclear Physics, Quantum Mechanics, and Particle Physics. In 1973-76 she was Physics Department Chair and in 1991-94 she served as Vice Chancellor for Research and Dean of the Graduate Division, the first woman to serve in these positions.

From SLAC, Anne worked on an experiment at the CERN Intersecting Storage Rings led by Carlo Rubbia, where the focus of her research was diffractive interactions and heavy meson physics. She went on to become one of the founding members of the UA1 experiment at CERN where the W and Z bosons were discovered in 1983. These discoveries led to the award of the 1984 Nobel Prize in physics to Carlo Rubbia and Simon van der Meer. In recognition of her contributions, she attended the award ceremony in Stockholm at the invitation of the recipients. In 1986 Anne’s pursuit of the high energy frontier prompted her to move to the DZero experiment which was being constructed at the Tevatron collider at Fermilab. Working at DZero, her group was part of the team that went on to discover the top quark in 1995.

Dr. Kernan’s honors included Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was a Senior Visiting Scientist at CERN, was elected a Counselor of the American Physical Society, and served on many advisory committees for the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the APS Committee on the Status of Women in Physics. Throughout her career, Anne was a strong advocate of women in science.

Outside of her work, Anne enjoyed hiking, skiing, cooking and the arts. Her brother, Gerard, lived in California for a number of years in the 1960s and 1970s so they regularly spent time together, hiking. Later, she remained in close contact with him and his wife, Mary, and their children in Glasnevin and her brother Denis, his wife Vera and their children in Rathfarnham.

Dr. Kernan was a generous benefactor to the UC Riverside Department of Physics and Astronomy. She made substantial donations to support outstanding undergraduate and graduate students via the annual Anne Kernan Graduate Award. She will be remembered as an accomplished and successful physicist with an innovative vision and a kind and generous nature. She was a highly valued professor and member of the UCR community and a mentor to many.

After retiring, Anne moved to Danvers, Massachusetts, to live with her sister Una and her late husband, John O’Connor. Later, she and her sister moved to Panama City Beach, Florida, to live with Una’s son, John Hyland. Anne was preceded in death by her brother Gerard Kernan who died in April 2020. Her sister, Una O’Connor died in August 2020.  Anne is survived by her brother Denis Kernan, living in Dublin, and nieces, nephews, grand-nieces and grand-nephews, living in Europe and the United States.

This memorial was assembled from various sources by Darleen DeMason with help from Stephen Wimpenny and a niece, Fiona Kernan.