David Kornreich, a Cornell-trained astronomer and longtime science educator, died Aug. 30 when the amphibious airplane he was piloting crashed near Ithaca. He was 52.
Kornreich owned the LA-4-200 Lake Buccaneer and was an avid aviator and flight instructor. The aircraft appeared to develop a mechanical problem about an hour after leaving Ithaca Tompkins International Airport, according to information Cornell attributed to the Tompkins County Sheriff's Office. A passenger also died.
Kornreich taught physics and astronomy in Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences and through its School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions. He also taught at Ithaca College and SUNY Cortland after returning to Ithaca in 2011.
Born Sept. 14, 1973, in Houston, Kornreich earned an undergraduate degree with honors in astronomy from the California Institute of Technology in 1995. He completed his Cornell doctorate in January 2001 with a thesis on the shape and motion of spiral galaxies under professors Martha Haynes and Richard Lovelace.
Cornell said his thesis included a first-of-its-kind study of a group of galaxies and led to five publications, four with Kornreich as first author. Haynes said he combined computational physics with an interest in explaining unusual structures observed in spiral galaxies, including lopsided systems in which stars and gas appeared offset from dark matter.
Kornreich also helped establish Cornell's Ask an Astronomer blog and taught a freshman writing seminar about open questions in astronomy and cosmology. He received the Eleanor Norton York Prize in Astronomy in 2000 for achievement and citizenship.
After earning his doctorate, he joined Humboldt State University in California as an assistant professor of physics and astrophysics and received tenure in 2006. He participated in an undergraduate research collaboration using Cornell's Arecibo Observatory and co-authored a 2018 catalog from the decade-long ALFALFA galaxy survey.
His research also took him to the Very Large Array in New Mexico and Palomar Observatory in California. Colleagues remembered him as especially committed to explaining science and sharing his interest in the physical laws behind astronomical observations.
Outside the classroom, Kornreich participated in the Finger Lakes Curling Club and worked as a roller derby referee. Cornell said he viewed the Aug. 12 solar eclipse from a ship off Greenland with his wife and described the experience as spiritual.
Kornreich is survived by his wife, Alexandra Clinton, a 1996 Cornell graduate.
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