Stirling Colgate

Stirling Auchincloss Colgate (/ˈkoʊlɡeɪt/; November 14, 1925 – December 1, 2013) was an American nuclear physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and a professor emeritus of physics at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology from 1965 to 1974, of which he also served its president.

A scion of the Colgate toothpaste family, he was America's premier diagnostics scientist on thermonuclear weapons during the early years at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, and later in Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). While much of his involvement with physics is still highly classified, he made many contributions in the open literature including physics education and astrophysics, specifically studying plasma physics.