Obituary of Andrew Hornig
On the morning of Sunday, October 7, 2018 Andrew Hornig, beloved husband, son and brother passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in Golden, Colorado from a head injury. Loving husband of Katie Richardson; loving son of Susanna Priest and Evan Hornig (Tina Lowe); loving brother of Wes Hornig; loving son-in-law of Jeanette and Ralph Richardson; loving brother-in-law of Haley and Cameron Cooper. Survived around the world by family, friends and colleagues. He is also survived by his two cats, Pixie and Rio.
All are welcome to join Andrew’s family for the memorial service to honor Andrew’s life. There will be a visitation Saturday, October 13th at 12.pm. noon to 12:30 p.m. with service to follow at 1 p.m. at Feldman Mortuary 1673 York St in Denver.
Andrew's family intends to establish a scholarship fund in his memory at U.C. Berkeley, where he completed his dissertation work. The planned fund will help support graduate students studying physics and will be dispersed in honor of Andy's life in two ways. It will support students who may someday apply their physics skills to the solution of humanitarian and environmental issues. It will also help students live fully during their studies by supporting their exploration of the outdoors. A life is an uncountable infinity, and we have been so lucky to have known and be touched by Andrew. You can make a contribution here: https://www.gofundme.com/andrew-hornig-memorial-fund If you would like to send flowers in celebration of Andrew, they may be sent to Feldman’s Mortuary at 1673 York St Denver, Colorado 80206.
Andrew married the love of his life, Katie Richardson, on April 21, 2018 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Together they shared all of life’s passions. Their marriage was lived and loved fully purely, and deeply. Andrew could not have been happier to hold and have Katie, and Katie adored being his wife. Their love was freely, easily and completely given and received. He said once about a race, “Katie carried me those last 12 miles, and I’m not sure I could have made it without her.” Andrew carried Katie, too.
Andrew was an avid outdoorsman, who loved running, hiking, backpacking, snowboarding, snowshoeing, kayaking and taking in beauty wherever he found it. He was a drummer, a wildly happy and expressive dancer and a burgeoning rapper. Katie and Andrew together talked in circles, loved music, cooked delicious meals, cheered for the Seahawks and Sounders, and stood in awe of light, aspen trees and mountains. Andrew was very proud of his beard. Andrew was quick-witted with self-deprecating jokes and anti-humor at the ready to help him find ways to make everyone he met smile. He was a profoundly kind man with a beautiful and generous heart, and of course, a gardener. He cared deeply and purely for all his loved ones, and never held back his tears. Andrew has a large circle of loving friends and family who shared in his joys and now grieve together in his loss.
Andrew attended A&M Consolidated High School in College Station, Texas before receiving his B.S. in math & physics magna cum laude from University of Texas at Austin. He completed his master’s and doctoral degrees in theoretical physics from the University of California at Berkeley under the advisement of Christian Bauer. Andrew was a postdoctoral researcher under the advisement of Steve Ellis at the University of Washington, where his mother Susanna received her doctorate. Los Alamos National Laboratory awarded Andrew a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellowship. At LANL he collaborated frequently with Chris Lee and many others. Andrew was blessed in his many scientific collaborators. In this work, he: revolutionized jet physics by conducting independent research paramount to analyses now widely used in the largest scientific collaboration in history at the Large Hadron Collider; conducted pioneering research foundational to soft-collinear effective theory collider physics by inventing a way to adapt established methods for understanding nuclear B-meson decay; was a key co-founder of a new area of physics known as “jet substructure”; and helped build a workshop series that grew from 20 to 120 people from manifold physics areas of theory and experiment that ultimately solved a problem previously deemed insurmountable. Andrew cared most about the doctoral students he led and mentored during their doctoral work.
Shortly before his death, Andrew started a new position as a lead data scientist for a humanitarian company, Kimetrica. The CEO of the company said of Andrew: “From my all too brief interactions with Andrew, I was aware of a rare intellectual acuity and sensitivity. He was clearly exceptionally motivated and keen to turn his formidable skills to the messy and seemingly intractable humanitarian problems. Within a few short minutes we were convinced that he would make advances in the global and thorny challenges with which we are struggling."
Andrew had many accomplishments in the outdoors. He was an avid runner, running the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim in two days, the Watermelon loop in the Sandias, and the 27-mile Four Pass loop in the Maroon Bells, a particularly joyful run with Katie. He loved his running shoe collection, which could tell stories about many miles, great joy and much beauty. Andrew was most proud of finishing the first annual Santa Fe 50-miler, running in 15:32:37 a course billed as a “brutally awesome race, the hardest you will ever run” with 14,000 feet of elevation gain. While 23 started that race, only nine finished. Those who did not finish had 518 races of experience together. Read his report on that race here (https://www.reddit.com/r/running/comments/55rlw1/race_report_one_beer_and_two_shots_later_the/), which includes this from Andrew: “I’d rather try and fail, than never try at all.” But Andrew succeeded in all he did. He lived a true, uncountable infinity of a life, and died with a heart full of joy and love.
