Tom Mehen, a highly regarded member of the faculty in the Department of Physics, passed away unexpectedly at his Chapel Hill home last weekend. He was 54.
Across more than two decades at Duke, Mehen made substantial contributions in the field of quantum chromodynamics and the application of effective field theory to problems in hadronic physics. His research was well-supported by grants from the Department of Energy and during his early years at Duke, he was recognized by the Department of Energy with the Outstanding Junior Investigator Award in Nuclear Physics. He joined Duke as an assistant professor in 2002 and was named professor in 2016.
Steffen Bass, Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of Physics and department chair, worked closely with Mehen on shared research and said his impact went beyond his scholarship. Mehen was passionate about his advanced graduate classes, and had been selected to be the lead faculty for a new introductory physics sequence that was launched in 2024, according to Bass.
“Along with his research, his teaching was highly regarded as well,” Bass said. “Tom cared deeply about teaching and had been eager to engage with our undergraduate students, which is why he had been looking forward to teaching in our new introductory course sequence.”
Berndt Mueller, the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of Physics, said one could not have asked for a better colleague than Mehen, who genuinely cared about the scientific community and took a particular interest in recruiting the best graduate students to Duke. He noted how Mehen spent the last few years as one of the driving forces behind the publication of the “TMD Handbook,” which had the goal of making the theoretical tools underpinning physics at the future Electron-Ion Collider accessible to young researchers who want to enter the field.
“Tom was a brilliant and ever curious scientist — always ready to help, a good departmental citizen, and always upholding the integrity of science,” Mueller said. “We will very much miss him.”
Duke colleague Shailesh Chandrasekharan frequently crossed paths with Mehen during the past two decades, with their offices located close together. He was always impressed with Mehen’s “extraordinary ability to grasp complex concepts effortlessly” and they shared and discussed their “confusions and ideas” on countless occasions. “Tom was always approachable with a physics question, willing to think deeply about it and engage in meaningful conversations,” Chandrasekharan said. “His profound appreciation for the mathematical subtleties of the problem always enriched our discussions, and I gained invaluable insights from them.”
Born in Honduras, Mehen moved with his family to Virginia when he was young and he would later earn his bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Virginia. After receiving his master’s and doctoral degrees from Johns Hopkins University, Mehen was a research associate and John A. McCone Postdoctoral Scholar at the California Institute of Technology, and a research associate and University Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ohio State University.
Mehen met Sean Fleming, now a professor at the University of Arizona, when Mehen was a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University. It was the start of decades of collaboration, and in 1998 the pair published the first of what would become 17 papers together. Along with being a collaborative colleague, Fleming said Mehen was a close friend with a big personality who was “unapologetically himself” throughout his life.
“What made him so awesome, however, is that he wasn’t set in his ways; he would take in information and if he was convinced some closely held principle of his was wrong, he would change,” Fleming said. “Tom was an independent thinker, never content to accept ideas at face value, even his own. He was always skeptical at first but could be convinced by solid logical argument. Professionally, I would characterize Tom as low-key greatness. He was a broad thinker and very good at cutting through the BS to get at the heart of the matter.”
Beyond his academic and professional accomplishments, Mehen was an absolutely devoted father who cared about his children — 22-year-old Zoey, 20-year-old Amelia, and 18-year-old Connor — more than anything in the world. Mehen was also incredibly close to his brothers, Michael and George, who were a constant source of strength and humor for him throughout his life.
Read Mehen's obituary to learn more about his life and legacy. A service in his memory will be held on Saturday, Jan. 11, at 1 p.m. in Duke University Chapel.
The Department of Physics is planning a memorial for Mehen during the spring semester with details to come on the department’s website.