Prof. Karl Berkelman ’59, physics, who was the Goldwin Smith Professor Emeritus of Physics and a leader in the design and construction of the Cornell Electron Storage Ring, died Feb. 26. He was 79.

Berkelman received a Ph.D. from Cornell in 1959 and joined the faculty two years later, where he remained for his entire career. Apart from the CESR, he was also actively involved in building many complex detectors that are collectively known as CLEO, according to an obituary published in The Ithaca Journal. The first track finding program for CLEO was also attributed to Berkelman. The program helped future researchers to reconstruct the path and momentum of charged particles following a collision, according to the University.