From Mike Kalichman:
As is the case for so many people who have worked in the “responsible conduct of research” (RCR) community, I was deeply saddened to hear the news of Ken’s passing. There were only a handful of pioneers in the early 1990s, and Ken stood out as one of the most influential of that group. When I took my very first steps to work in this field, I was inspired and influenced by hearing about Ken’s work, featured in an issue of the journal Science in 1995. However, I can’t emphasize enough that the importance of Ken’s contributions was defined by his ability to see and understand the world in very different ways than most of us. Whenever I had the opportunity to put a group of people together to work on a project in the RCR field, I particularly wanted to include Ken because he was not only willing, but very able, to speak up to challenge what the rest of us might be thinking. Although I would sometimes disagree with him, his contributions sharpened every discussion. One striking example of both Ken’s humor and his intellect was a talk I heard him present a bit over ten years ago. The talk was framed around classifying different types of ethicists in the form of a bestiary (a fitting approach for someone whose Ph.D. was in folklore). I couldn’t find the precise version of that talk online, but I did find a summary of at least one iteration in which Ken beautifully noted: “The presentation will conclude with suggestions on the taming, but not breeding, of ethicists.” For anyone not fully familiar with Ken’s particular sense of humor, you could do worse than to look at his published book: “An animal walks into a bar” published in 2019. For those of us still interested in the responsible and ethical practice of scholarship, Ken’s contributions made this field much more than it would have been without him, and it is now much less because of his absence. Although I have not had the privilege to meet Ken’s family, I can only offer my condolences on his absence, and to thank you for the years you made space to share Ken with the rest of us.