Ed McCliment

Physics professor, painter Age: 86

Ed McCliment was known for his morning stroll. Returning from the store with coffee and a copy of The New York Times, McCliment never looked up from his newsprint on the walk back – no need to watch his feet along the well-trod route that always carried him home.

McCliment, a 40-year physics professor at the University of Iowa, saw his work take him on research trips to far-flung places – Brazil, Switzerland, Germany – and a stint at the famed Fermilab, a national particle physics lab in Illinois.

“Your classic physics professor,” Nancy Korpela says of her father. “A brilliant man, but a kindhearted man.”

Later in life, McCliment took up painting, a hobby he put to use making portraits of staff and residents when his assisted living facility locked down in March 2020. A few months later, right before McCliment tested positive for the coronavirus, he found out he was going to be a greatgrandfather, Korpela said. He died June 1, 2020.