H. Terry Fortune, a professor emeritus in the department of physics & astronomy in the School of Arts & Sciences, died on June 16 after a long illness. He was 82.

Born in Ramer, Tennessee, Dr. Fortune grew up helping his sharecropper parents with farming. He graduated from Ramer High School and, with the assistance of his teacher Estel Mills, received a full scholarship to Memphis State University, where he graduated summa cum laude in 1963. He received his PhD in nuclear physics from Florida State University in 1967, then spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Argonne National Laboratory. He joined Penn’s faculty in 1969 as an assistant professor of physics and was promoted to an associate professor in 1972, and then to a full professor in 1976. At Penn, Dr. Fortune served on the graduate council of elected representatives of graduate faculty, the University Council, and the Faculty Senate Executive Committee. He retired from Penn in 2011.

Dr. Fortune was renowned in the field of nuclear physics and gave invited guest lectures at other universities around the world. He spent the 1977-1978 academic year conducting research in nuclear structure physics at Oxford University and Groningen University in the Netherlands. He also collected data from high energy accelerators in Los Alamos, Vancouver, New York City, and Norfolk, Virginia. An engaging speaker, he spoke at several special conferences honoring nuclear physicists. He was also a prolific scholar, publishing over 500 peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Fortune was highly regarded as a teacher at the undergraduate and graduate levels and mentored dozens of PhD students over the decades.

Dr. Fortune is survived by his son, Jonathan Forsyth; his daughter, Maury Kenworthy (Drew); his brother, Jerry (Sandy) Fortune; his sister, Judy Perry (Steve); two grandchildren; many nieces and nephews; and his long-term companion, Marlynne Micalizzi. In lieu of flowers, please donate to your favorite charity or plant a tree.