Victor Viola
1935 - 2024
Victor E. Viola, resident of Golden, Colorado, passed away peacefully on June 17, 2024. Born in Abilene Kansas in 1935, Vic grew up in a loving extended family. As a child, Vic played basketball and baseball, hunted and fished, and played music and games with family and friends. In his younger years, Vic worked at the RHV Hardware store, founded in Abilene by his father and run by both of his parents.
Vic attended the University of Kansas with the original intent to get a degree in sports journalism. Along the way he took several science and math classes and gravitated to the study of atoms and ions. He received an A.B in 1957 from the University of Kansas and his Ph.D. in 1961 from the University of California at Berkeley. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, a postdoctoral fellow at the European Organization of Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland, and a Research Associate at the Argonne National Laboratory. He taught generations of chemistry students at the University of Maryland and at Indiana University, where he was named Distinguished Professor. His research was recognized by a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1980 and the American Chemical Society Award for Research in Nuclear Chemistry in 1986. He was a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His national service has included Chair (1980) and Secretary (1972-74) of the ACS Division of Nuclear Chemistry and Technology, the Executive Committee of the APS Division of Nuclear Physics (1988-89), and Chair and member of numerous program and review committees of the Department of Energy National Laboratories and the National Science Foundation nuclear physics program.
Vic’s research as a nuclear chemist was inclusive of nuclear fission, nuclear reaction dynamics, nuclear astrophysics, and heavy element nuclear systematics.
While doing his post-doctoral work in Berkeley, Vic met Nancy Jean Weaver, an elementary school teacher from Evansville, Indiana. Vic and Nancy married in 1962 and Nancy accompanied Vic to his fellowship in Geneva, Switzerland. After the fellowship they lived in Hinsdale, Illinois, then College Park, Maryland and then several decades in Bloomington, Indiana before he and Nancy retired to Golden to be closer to their three children, who had all moved to Colorado.
While a renowned academic, family was everything to Vic. He was never one to miss one of his kid’s hockey games, ski races, or cross country meets. Later, he enjoyed attending every possible ski race, soccer game, and band performance for his grandkids.
Vic was also a life-long athlete. He initially learned to ski in his early twenties and continued to ski until his early eighties, loving nothing more than his many favorite runs at Vail.
Vic is survived by three children, Charley (Ariane), Randy (Heather), and Gina (Casey), and six grandchildren of whom he was enormously proud: Lauren, Elise, Alexander, Ben, Griffin, and Liam. He also leaves two surviving siblings, Roger Viola and Pat Cormack, as well as an extended family network. His wife Nancy pre-deceased him in 2016.
Make a Donation
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be sent to the Food Bank of the Rockies.
