William Allan Bardeen, husband, father and physicist, passed away November 18, 2025, in Warrenville, IL his home for over 30 years. Bill was born September 15, 1941, in Washington PA and grew up in Summit, NJ and Champaign-Urbana, IL where he attended University High School. He received his B.A. in physics from Cornell University in 1962 and his PhD from the University of Minnesota in 1968. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Minnesota in 2002.
Bill was an avid athlete playing baseball, basketball and volleyball throughout his life. Later, he took up bicycling and could be seen riding around Warrenville and to Wheaton, Naperville or Batavia. Bill enjoyed the Colorado mountains. A longtime friend of the Aspen Center for Physics and a trustee for five years, he could be found with his family on weekend hikes or on the ski slopes at Christmas. Bill was his family’s genealogist and published “The Barden/Bardeen Genealogy.” Bill’s graduate work was supported by a NASA Traineeship, and later he received fellowships from the Alfred P Sloan Foundation, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. Bill was awarded J.J. Sakurai Prize from the American Physical Society in 1996. He became a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1984, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998, a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1999, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2009.
Bill was a son of John Bardeen, two-time Nobel Laureate in physics and professor of physics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His mother, Jane Maxwell Bardeen, was a zoologist and active in school and community affairs. His brother James Maxwell Bardeen was a theoretical astrophysicist at the University of Washington and his sister Elizabeth Bardeen Greytak a systems analyst at A.D. Little.
He was preceded in death by his parents, brother, and sister. He is survived by his high school sweetheart and beloved wife of 64 years, Marjorie Gaylord Bardeen, son Charles Gaylord Bardeen Boulder, CO, daughter Karen Gail Bardeen Oak Park, IL, sister-in-law Nancy Bardeen, brother-in-law Thomas Greytak and four nephews William and David Bardeen and Andrew and Matthew Greytak.
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