Long time Hampton Roads resident and NASA Scientist Dr. Ram Kishore Tripathi passed away on April 9, 2025; He was 83 and is survived by his wife of 59 years, his son, his daughter-in-law, and two grand-children. He was pre-deceased by his parents and elder brother who was also a renowned educator.
Born in India, Dr. Tripathi lived and attended school and college in and around Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh. He first came to the United States in 1966 on a Fulbright Fellowship to pursue his Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics at the University of Kansas. Thereafter, he successively moved to Germany, England, and India to collaborate with leading nuclear physicists at research universities around the world.
Renowned for his keen intellect, Dr. Tripathi received many professional accolades including election to the American Physical Society, American Academy of Aeronautics & Astronautics, and the NASA Langley Director Award for Outstanding Research that is essential to protecting the health of our astronauts on the Mars Mission.
After leaving NASA at the ripe age of 73, and being acutely aware of the need for students to be educated in STEM, Dr. Tripathi taught Math and Physics at local area High Schools, the Virginia Peninsula Community College, and Hampton University.
Dr. Tripathi will be celebrated as a devoted husband, a loving father, a doting grandfather, a brilliant scientist, and a passionate teacher who inspired all around him to do their best. Nothing brought him more joy than seeing his grand-children and former students perform well academically and grow up to be upstanding individuals. He would regularly receive updates from students he had taught years or even decades earlier. Dr. Tripathi was a passionate follower of US Politics and would never pass up the opportunity to opine on how the United States could continue to be the economic and scientific power-house of the world.
