David Nowak

David Nowak, a pioneering nuclear weapons physicist who helped create the modern stockpile and who was instrumental in establishing the Laboratory as a global leader in high performance computing, died March 6.

Nowak joined the Lab in 1972 in A Division (secondary design). He worked closely in the design of the innovative W83 modern strategic bomb, and other modern systems. He has the unique distinction of having twice been A Division Leader and took on the demanding role of leading R Program, the project to develop a nuclear X-ray laser.

After distinguishing himself as a weapons designer, Nowak was appointed the first leader of the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI), a cornerstone of DOE Defense Program's effort to ensure the safety, security and reliability of the nation's nuclear deterrent without underground testing. Nowak earned the admiration of colleagues at LLNL, DOE and industrial partners for his skillful leadership and navigation of the technical and financial complexities involved in bringing computing platforms of unprecedented capability to fruition -- supercomputing systems that introduced three dimensional (3-D), high fidelity physics simulation to stockpile stewardship.

In 1999, Nowak took on the additional role of deputy associate director for the Defense and Nuclear Technologies Directorate, what is today the Weapons and Complex Integration Principal Directorate.

"Dave was one of those unique scientists who think differently. This may sound cliche, but for Dave, it was truly the case," said Bruce Goodwin, principal associate director for Weapons and Complex Integration. "He was an intellect on a very different level than even the smartest of the smart. All of us at this Lab and in the nation are poorer because of his passing."

Michel McCoy, head of the LLNL ASC program and deputy director for Computation, said it was Nowak's skillful leadership that made ASCI a success. "Dave was creative, a free streaming thinker and master strategist with uncanny instincts for what motivates people. He had an ability to galvanize strong personalities from different disciplines and of diverse points of view to a cause. Good ideas and insights seemed to flow from him with little effort or strain."

Nowak earned his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Chicago and BS from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, NY.

Friends and colleagues remember him as a renaissance man with broad interests. He was an avid cyclist and skier. Nowak and his wife developed a love of France, learned French and had a home there.

"Dave was a man who lived life fully," McCoy said. "But he always remembered his friends and was uncommonly decent to all who knew him."

Funeral services were held in Berkeley and followed by interment in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland March 12.