Gareth Pierce Williams

Died on November 5, 2014, at University Medical Center of Princeton.
He was born on October 16, 1939, in Penrhynside, Wales, to Thomas and Myfanwy Williams. From childhood he excelled in mathematics, in which he earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees at the University of Wales at Bangor. In 1964 he married Janet Harding, whom he had met while she was vacationing near his seaside village; a keen bicyclist, he once rode 100 miles to visit her at her home in England. After a honeymoon in Corsica they crossed the Atlantic on the Queen Mary for Gareth to take up a postdoctoral fellowship at the US Government's new Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) in Washington, D.C. Very quickly he was offered a permanent position and moved with the lab to Princeton in 1968.

In the course of his 40 years at GFDL, he distinguished himself as a leading expert on the mathematical modeling of atmospheric systems, especially in his groundbreaking work on Jupiter and Earth's jet stream. He published dozens of articles in the flagship journals of his field, was elected a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, and in 1989 was invited on a lecture tour of Japan. He also served as a consultant to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on its Pioneer and Voyager missions.

His greatest love was for his family: his wife Janet, with whom he had recently celebrated their fiftieth anniversary; his sons Kieran and Kirk, their wives Laura and Kristine, and grandsons David, Philip and Hagan. Even after becoming a U.S. citizen, Gareth remained deeply attached to his Welsh roots and his native Welsh language, and passed to his sons his passion for walking the Welsh hills. A devoted listener of classic music, he and Janet were season ticket-holders at McCarter Theatre's music series for 40 years.

A memorial gathering will be held Tuesday, November 11, 2014 from 2-4pm at the Kimble Funeral Home, 1 Hamilton Ave., Princeton. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made in his name to support research into Parkinson's by visiting www.apadparkinson.org, or www.lightofday.org or www.michaeljfox.org.