Malvin Howard Kalos

Malvin Howard Kalos died Nov. 17, 2025. He was 97.

Born in New York City, Kalos attended Queens College before earning a doctor of philosophy in physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1952. He then pursued postdoctoral work at Cornell University under Nobel Prize-winning physicist Hans Bethe. After postdoctoral research at Illinois and Cornell, he joined the staff of United Nuclear Corporation and performed detailed Monte Carlo models of nuclear reactors. In 1964, he became a senior research scientist, later research professor and then professor of computer science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University. In 1989, he returned to Cornell as professor of physics and director of the Theory Center. At age 70, he joined the staff of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked until age 83. His research interests included Monte Carlo Methods and computational many-body physics, and he originated the Green’s function Monte Carlo method. He was the recipient of the 1989 Feenberg Memorial Medal for advancement of many-body theories from first principles.

He is survived by Carole, his wife of nearly 40 years; his children Stephen, Lauren and Sean; his sister Diane; grandchildren Jacob, Noa and Joel; great-grandchildren Rowan and Theo; nieces Abbe, Jodi and Amy; nephews Matthew, Jonathan, and Andrew; and many close friends and colleagues. He was predeceased by his brother Arnold.