Pavel Nadolsky
My colleague in the SMU group of theoretical physics, Kent was gentle and special. I regularly passed by his office (two doors away from mine), and we would occasionally chat about science, books, and tea. [For several years, he was the liaison with the SMU library and collected an excellent array of books on physics for the department and especially the graduate students. He shared passion for good-quality tea and for several years was ordering large batches for our coffee room.] Kent was an excellent director of our Ph. D. program. As such, he was not too loud and has always impressed me with his regularity and perseverance in running the grad school and giving the immediate attention to grad students as soon as they needed it. His model of kind, caring support to the students is really quite memorable.I was gradually learning from Kent about his interesting work in the area of lattice quantum chromodynamics, an approach based on computer simulations of quantum matter comprising protons and atomic nuclei. Overcoming the physical limitations, he attended the meetings of our research group, and we hoped to eventually write a physics article together. We appreciated his spirit and curiosity, and of course his expertise. I am sorry that I could not come to Kent’s memorial service because of an overlapping international trip. His soft and genial presence will be missed and remembered.