At 100 Years Old, This Physicist Still Goes to Work and Refuses to Retire

A Century of Science — and Still Counting

Jim Choyke was born before the Empire State Building was built, before women could vote, and before the first McDonald's opened. Now 100 years old, he still shows up to work at the University of Pittsburgh — and he's not apologizing for it. When asked why he hasn't retired, his answer is disarmingly simple: "I like doing physics. Why should I retire?"

Choyke's life story begins far from Pittsburgh. In 1986, he described his origins plainly: "My parents came to this country from Berlin in 1935 as refugees from Hitler. I was born in Berlin in 1926." The family first went to Amsterdam for a year on their way to New York City. From those difficult beginnings, Choyke would go on to build one of the most quietly consequential careers in American physics.

From Ohio State to the Forefront of Semiconductor Science

Before joining the University of Pittsburgh, Choyke served as a consultant physicist at the Westinghouse R&D Center, and holds an undergraduate degree from Ohio State University, where he developed a strong foundation in physics. His name — Wolfgang Justus Choyke — is formal and European, but colleagues have always called him Jim, a distinctly American touch that suits a man who has spent the better part of a century weaving himself into the fabric of Pittsburgh's scientific community.

Choyke's research group at Pitt, alongside collaborator Robert P. Devaty, focuses on large-bandgap semiconductors, particularly silicon carbide — a material whose superior properties hold great promise for power devices with improved energy efficiency, as well as devices that operate at high temperature, high frequency, and under harsh conditions. In plain terms, the material Choyke has spent decades studying is now showing up in electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, and next-generation electronics. His foundational work helped lay the scientific groundwork that engineers are only now fully exploiting.

While silicon carbide has been an industrial product for over a century, it is only now emerging as the semiconductor of choice for high-power, high-temperature, and high-radiation environments — from electrical switching and sensors for oil drilling technology to all-electric airplanes. Choyke was studying this material's quantum properties long before the rest of the world caught up.

A Career Measured in Decades, Not Years

Known formally as Wolfgang Justus Choyke, he is a physicist emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh, with a son, Peter, a well-known diagnostic radiologist in Washington, D.C., and a daughter, Alice, an archaeologist. His family reflects the same intellectual breadth that has defined his own life. His research has primarily focused on materials science and engineering, with attention to electrical and electronic engineering, electronic and optical materials, and materials chemistry — with one recent publication appearing as late as 2020 in Physical Review B.

In 2023, he contributed a chapter titled "Silicon Carbide: Presolar SiC Stardust Grains and the Human History of SiC from 1824 to 1974" to the Handbook of Silicon Carbide Materials and Devices, published by CRC Press. Publishing a book chapter in your late 90s is remarkable by any measure. Doing so as part of an active, ongoing research program is almost without precedent.

What Longevity in Science Really Looks Like

Choyke's story challenges the cultural assumption that science is a young person's game — that breakthroughs belong to those in their 30s and that wisdom is best expressed through retirement. Here is a man who has watched quantum mechanics evolve from theoretical novelty to the engine of modern technology, and who has contributed to that evolution at every stage. His work on silicon carbide, once considered a niche academic pursuit, is now central to the clean energy transition.

There is something quietly radical about a 100-year-old physicist who simply keeps going — not out of stubbornness, but out of genuine love for the work. As the world races to build quantum computers, faster semiconductors, and more efficient power systems, Jim Choyke remains at his desk at Pitt, a living link between the birth of quantum mechanics and its most cutting-edge applications. The question isn't why he hasn't retired. The better question might be: what would we lose if he did?