Remembering Physicist and Emeritus Trustee Peter Littlewood
The Simons Foundation honors the memory and legacy of Peter Littlewood, a physicist, scientific leader and long-serving member of the foundation’s board of trustees. Littlewood, 71, died on June 15, 2026, at his home in Chicago.
During his time on the board of trustees from 2017 to 2026, Littlewood provided thoughtful leadership, astute questions and shrewd insights on essential topics that shaped the foundation through some of the most significant years of growth.
“Peter was an exceptional scientist, leader and person,” says Simons Foundation President David Spergel. “His service to the Simons Foundation cannot be overstated — his contributions helped make the foundation what it is today. We will all miss him.”
As a founding member of the scientific advisory board of the foundation’s Flatiron Institute, Littlewood helped set the institute’s scientific direction, identifying emerging research areas and fostering a culture of unmatchable scientific quality and collaboration.
Over the course of his career, Littlewood published hundreds of papers in scientific journals, gave hundreds of invited talks and held multiple patents.
His scientific journey began in England, where he graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1976 with an undergraduate degree in physics. He then worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for two years as a Kennedy Scholar before returning to Cambridge to earn his Ph.D. in physics. Shortly thereafter, he began work at the legendary Bell Labs in its theoretical physics research group, eventually rising to head of the team in 1992.
In 1997, he returned to the University of Cambridge, heading the Theory of Condensed Matter group and later serving as head of the Cavendish Laboratory. In 2011, he moved to the University of Chicago, eventually becoming the chair of the university’s Department of Physics, and serving as associate lab director — and later director — of the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory.
Littlewood’s research was instrumental in propelling the field of theoretical condensed matter physics. His work provided valuable insights into the quantum behavior of superconductors, superfluids, semiconductors and more. These discoveries found applications in everything from holographic storage to optical fibers to materials for particle detectors.
“You can be slogging on a problem for years, and then at some point it all comes together, and you realize, aha, I do understand that,” Littlewood said in a 2024 University of Chicago podcast. “That’s elementary, creative joy. Sometimes it feels like finishing a symphony.”
He lent his scientific expertise and leadership as a board member of many organizations beyond the Simons Foundation, including the Faraday Institution, the Paul Scherrer Institute, the Carnegie Institution for Science and the Max Planck Institutes in Halle and Hamburg, Germany.
Throughout his career, whether as a physics professor or a board member, he was a powerful advocate for supporting future generations of scientists.
“I have remarked about my own students that they often fail to recognize that a problem is insoluble, and thus have the enthusiasm and uncluttered minds, as well as the skills, to crack it,” Littlewood wrote in the Cavendish Laboratory’s magazine in 2011 when he stepped away from his role as director. “The wonderful thing is that as scientific challenges emerge, brilliant people seem to turn up.”
