KATHERINE CHIYOKO FRAME Sept. 20, 1966 – Aug. 28, 2023
It is our sad task to announce the passing of our petite, plucky, purple-mohawked, punk-rocker PhD particle physicist Katherine (Kate) Frame. After her four-year battle with pancreatic cancer, she is missed dearly and deeply.
Kate curated a veritable cornucopia of friends, no two alike, each feeling uniquely cherished. Many of her friends were also coworkers at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where Kate performed leading roles in an impressive diversity of important projects supporting international nuclear safeguards, arms control verification, satellite technology, and stockpile responsiveness.
Like another brilliant female physicist, Marie Curie, Kate believed that “nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.” Kate embodied this philosophy even through the course of her terminal disease, purchasing a 3D medical model of the digestive tract to better visualize and communicate her disease, symptoms and treatment. While her life was far shorter than we wished it to be, Kate was adamant that it was complete.
Her bucket was full; there was no list. Some of the stuff in that bucket: 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for work related to the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics; the Secretary of Energy Achievement Award; an H Index to rival many a Laboratory Fellow; green Chuck Taylors; and an enviable array of Kate Spade handbags.
Kate’s friends and family will remember her while enjoying things she loved to do: hiking (or just a wee walk), biking, snowboarding, enjoying a spot of tea, watching a football game (English and American), contemplating solutions to hard problems (physical and philosophical), savoring a moment with a friend.
Kate began her career at LANL in 2003 after having obtained degrees (B.A., M.S., and Ph.D.) in Physics and completed postdoctoral research with Oxford University. She worked in NEN and XTD Divisions.
Some career highlights include:
- Team Lead for Second Line of Defense; Kate received recognition from NNSA for her efforts resolving an urgent requirement to recover radioactive calibration sources overseas and was praised for her technical know-how, “personal interest in the integrity of the results”, and “great energy”.
- Technical lead for DOE Office of Dismantlement and Transparency Program supporting Arms Control and Treaty Verification.
- Lead for Warhead Measurement Campaign Team Lead; project received DOE / NNSA Awards Secretary of Energy’s Achievement Award. The team obtained a standardized set of radiation signature data from U.S. stockpile weapons to support treaty verification and emergency response studies, as well as other nuclear nonproliferation and defense program needs.
- Stockpile Responsiveness Program where recent work includes successful test of instrumented payload on rocket relayed flight data to an orbiting satellite at Spaceport America.
Kate’s final days were spent in her hometown of Chicago, with her mother, father, sister (Kelly), and brother (Sam). Friends and co-workers celebrated the life of Kate Frame at the Pajarito Mountain Ski Area in Los Alamos Sept. 20, which would have been her 57th birthday.
Friends are encouraged to post pictures, stories, and condolences at: https://everloved.com/life-of/