Professor of Physics and Astronomy, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Louisville, Kentucky
Adjunct Professor, University of Southern Queensland, Australia
John Francis Kielkopf was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Virginia Newton Kielkopf and John Francis Kielkopf, Sr, in 1945. The family lived in Hartford, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Des Moines before settling in Louisville in 1950. He was educated in Louisville public schools and developed an interest in science and astronomy through reading in the local library and friendships in the Louisville Astronomical Society. In the summer of 1961 he participated in the residential NSF Summer Science Workshop at the University of Tennessee where he had courses in chemistry and physics, and an exposure to research in cosmic ray physics. On return to his high school, he was encouraged to enter the University of Louisville's Early Admissions program for full time study the following year. He received his B.S. in physics with highest honors in the spring of 1966 and completed his M.S. that summer through an Accelerated Master's Degree program. He was selected as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and entered the Johns Hopkins University doctoral program in the fall. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1969, he was awarded a tenure-track position in physics at the University of Louisville, where he has remained for his career. He became a full professor of physics in 1977, and received the University's highest academic Trustees Award in Recognition of Extraordinary Impact on Students in 2009.
During his academic career he has held visiting and adjunct positions at the Johns Hopkins University, Argonne National Laboratory, the Observatory of Paris, Meudon, and the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. He continues the fundamental research in optics and atomic and molecular physics of his early years with a focus on stellar and planetary astrophysics, and applications to remote sensing.
His interest in astronomy led to the University's development in 1978 of Moore Observatory located within the Horner Wildlife Refuge in nearby Oldham County. He established the Shared Skies collaboration of the University of Louisville with the University of Southern Queensland and its Mt. Kent Observatory in 2000, added the Manner Telescope on Mt. Lemmon to the remotely operable instrumentation in 2016, and a year later was a founding collaborator of Minerva Australis for precision spectroscopy in the southern hemisphere. These facilities are available to faculty and graduate, undergraduate and pre-college students in Kentucky and Queensland, and offer full coverage of the sky for imaging, photometry and spectroscopy.