Kenneth Leon Nordtvedt is a professor emeritus

Emeritus

Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...

 in the Physics Department at Montana State University

Montana State University - Bozeman

Montana State University – Bozeman is a public university located in Bozeman, Montana. It is the state's land-grant university and primary campus in the Montana State University System, which is part of the Montana University System...

 and a senior researcher specializing in relativistic theories of gravity. He was born on April 16, 1939, in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

. Nordtvedt graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 (1960) and Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

 (Ph.D., 1964). In the mid-1960s he showed through "a fiendish piece of mathematics" how lunar laser ranging could be used to test a cornerstone of general relativity

General relativity

General relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics...

 known as the equivalence principle

Equivalence principle

In the physics of general relativity, the equivalence principle is any of several related concepts dealing with the equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass, and to Albert Einstein's assertion that the gravitational "force" as experienced locally while standing on a massive body is actually...

. He was a board member and scientific advisor overseeing the joint NASA-ESA Space Test of Equivalence Principle

STEP (satellite)

The Satellite Test of the Equivalence Principle is a proposed space science experiment to test the equivalence principle of general relativity...

 mission. He was appointed by then President Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 to the National Science Board

National Science Board

The National Science Board of the United States is composed of 25 members appointed by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate, representing the broad U.S. science and engineering community. The Board establishes the policies of the National Science Foundation within the framework...

. He was one of only two academic scientists serving on the board. He served three terms in the Montana state legislature

Montana State Legislature

The Montana State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Montana. It is composed of the 100-member Montana House of Representatives and the 50-member Montana Senate....

 for a six year period in the early eighties. He had support from NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 during the 1970s for his research. His research was the subject of a Wall Street Journal article featured on the front page.

He is also an active genetic genealogist

Genetic genealogy

Genetic genealogy is the application of genetics to traditional genealogy. Genetic genealogy involves the use of genealogical DNA testing to determine the level of genetic relationship between individuals.-History:...

, and has also done his own research into genetic haplogroups, particularly the Y DNA group I

Haplogroup I (Y-DNA)

In human genetics, Haplogroup I is a Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup, a subgroup of haplogroup IJ, itself a derivative of Haplogroup IJK....

 to which he belongs, and advises on haplotypes for a population genetics group at FamilyTreeDNA

FamilyTreeDNA

Family Tree DNA is a commercial genetic genealogy company based in Houston, Texas with its partner laboratory, Arizona Research Labs, housed at the University of Arizona. Family Tree DNA offers analysis of autosomal DNA, YDNA, and mtDNA to individuals for genealogical purposes based on DNA samples...

. Nordtvedt has proposed a new most recent common ancestor

Most recent common ancestor

In genetics, the most recent common ancestor of any set of organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly descended...

 calculation method.

Associated eponyms

• Nordtvedt effect
  Nordtvedt effect
  In theoretical astrophysics, the Nordtvedt effect refers to the relative motion between the Earth and the Moon which would be observed if the gravitational self-energy of a body contributed to its gravitational mass but not its inertial mass...