MARBLEAHD — Katherine J. (Russell) Sopka, Ph.D., former college teacher and scholar, of Marblehead, died Thursday, July 30, 2009 at the Shaughnessy-Kaplan Hospital in Salem. She was 88-years-old and succumbed to the effects of a recent stroke.

Born and raised in Dorchester, Dr. Sopka was fourth of six siblings. She attended Girls Latin High School in Boston and won a scholarship to Radcliffe College (now a part of Harvard University) where she earned a Bachelor's degree in physics.

In 1943, she married John J. Sopka, from Elizabeth, N.J., with whom she had studied as an undergraduate under Nobel Prize winning Harvard Physics Professor John H. Van Vleck. Professor Van Vleck remained their close friend over many years. They celebrated their 66th anniversary this spring.

During the war, the couple was moved to Dayton, Ohio, where husband John was a research physicist with the Manhattan Project and their first child, John R. Sopka, now of Groton, was born in 1944. Because of her strong physics background, Katherine was briefly considered for a position in the Manhattan Project alongside her husband, but this possibility was quickly dismissed due to her pregnancy.

After the war, they returned to Harvard to complete their graduate degrees. Despite the birth of their other two children, Robert J. Sopka, of Catonsville, Md., and Elisabeth M. Sopka, formerly of Marblehead and now of Boston, Katherine completed a Master's degree in physics while her husband John completed his Ph.D. in Mathematics, both at Harvard.

"Mom told me just days before she died, that she was never, ever bored. The pattern of her life truly bears that out," said Elisabeth. The family lived in Silver Spring, Md., Elizabeth, N.J., and Boulder, Colo. Later she and husband John lived in Arlington, Texas, Framingham, and Durango, Colo. before finally relocating to Marblehead just 10 years ago. In addition, she and John also lived for a year in Geneva, Switzerland two separate times, where he was visiting Professor, and traveled extensively throughout Europe and to Moscow.

In New Jersey, Katherine taught physics at Newark State Teachers College and later taught physics and physical science at the University of Colorado in Boulder. There she worked with Professors Frank Oppenheimer and David Hawkins on curriculum development for physics instruction including the PSSC Physics Project.

Upon relocating to Framingham in 1971, Katherine began working with Professor Gerald Holton at Harvard in the History of Science Department with whom she completed her Ph.D. in 1976. Her dissertation details the research on, and the development of, the principles of quantum physics in the United States during the first part of the 20th century. This research was later published by the American Institute of Physics as the book, Quantum Physics in America: The Years through 1935. Also during this time, she continued her interest in effective physics teaching, participating in the development of Harvard Project Physics.

Over the following years, she served as editor for the American Institute of Physics History of Modern Physics series of books. In addition, she conducted numerous interviews with many noted physicists, including Nobel Prize winners John H. Van Vleck and Edward M. Purcell, chronicling the influences on them which led to development of their contributions. These interviews are now included in the Oral History Transcripts preserved by the Neils Bohr Library & Archives. Prof. Holton stated that "Her skills as an interviewer were unparalleled, and I highly valued her as a collaborator. The interviews she conducted with the members of the Physics Department form a valuable record for Harvard University and are stored in their archives for future generations."

Her last project was an account of the essential work performed at the Bonebrake Seminary in Dayton, Ohio and its contributions to the ultimate success of the Manhattan Project. This little known, highly secret site was responsible for essential aspects of the polonium trigger for the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Having presented with her daughter a preliminary paper on this at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society in 2004, they have continued working on it and it is now in the final stages of publication in Physics in Perspective, a professional journal published by Springer for and by historians of physics.

In addition to her husband John and their three children, Katherine is survived by four grandchildren, Andrea Shear of New York, Margaret Shear of San Francisco, Edward (Ted) Shear of Boston, and Christopher Sopka of Groton. Katherine will also be missed by many other relatives and close friends.

ARRANGEMENTS: A funeral service will be held at 1 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2009, at Saint Peters Roman Catholic Church, 309 Bowdoin St., Dorchester. In lieu of flowers, in memoriam donations may be made to the Katherine J. Sopka Memorial Fund for Women in Physics, care of the National Grand Bank, 91 Pleasant St., Marblehead, MA 01945. Arrangements by the Eustis Cornell Funeral Home, Marblehead. Please visit the online guestbook at www.mem.com.