Kevin Edward Gilbert, 73, passed away peacefully surrounded by his family on Friday, October 28, his obituary may be found here.
Kevin was a research scientist in the department from 1980-2002 specializing in computational chemistry. Kevin also was adjunct professor in Chemistry and in the Luddy School for Informatics from 2002-2022. He was a visiting lecturer at the Luddy School of Informatics 2008 and 2010. Kevin was a pioneer and innovator in developing computer algorithms and software to model and predict chemical properties of organic compounds. He was a valued member of the research rank faculty from 1980s until the early 2002, achieving the rank of Associate Scientist. He and professor Joe Gajewski created the PCModel computer application in 1985. PCModel enabled the prediction of molecular and structures properties of organic compounds on a personal computer rather than a mainframe or supercomputer. PCModel was still being sold and upgraded as late as 2019. He also created other modules for computational chemistry including GMMX, Orbdraw and Vibrate. SciFinder Scholar lists 31 publications for Kevin, and his most recent IU collaboration (with the Clemmer and Raghavachari groups) was published in 2019, and his PCModel program is still used by many chemical researchers (most recent version 10_rc75, last update in 2020).
There will be a celebration of his life on January 15, 2023 from 2 to 6 pm at the Upland Brewing Wood Shop.