Roll Call Tribute

Steve Louis Karman 

September 18, 1959 - February 25, 2024 

Steve Louis Karman passed away on February 25, 2024, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Visitation services will be held at Weaver Funeral Home at 1:00 pm EST on Saturday, March 2, 2024 followed by Funeral Services at 3:00 pm.

Steve was born in Lincoln Park, Michigan, on September 18, 1959. He moved to Texas in 1971 and graduated from Midland High School in 1977. Steve attended the Air Force Academy for a year before transferring to Texas A&M University to complete his bachelor's and master's degrees. He continued on to acquire his Doctorate of Philosophy in Aerospace Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington in 1991 while working full-time at General Dynamics.

While at Texas A&M, Steve met his future wife, Debra Esser, and married on July 3rd, 1982. Steve and Debra enjoyed 42 wonderful years of marriage before his passing. They joyfully became the proud parents of 3 girls: Kristen, Danielle, and Melissa; and three grandchildren: Giselle, Henry, and Roselynn. He was a caring and gentle father, never ignoring an opportunity to support his daughters in their passions.

Steve thoroughly enjoyed his hobby as a swim official, where he went on to officiate swim meets at all levels throughout the southeast.

During his 40+ year career as an aerospace engineer, Steve developed technology for solving the Navier-Stokes equations over complex geometries. Over much of Steve’s career, he focused on developing methods for generating unstructured grids. He contributed several innovative and unique algorithms, including viscous-layer insertion, elliptic smoothing incorporating the Winslow equations, virtual control volumes, geometry parameterization, and most recently, the currently only viable means for curving meshes for high-order simulations. Steve was always very willing to provide meshes for the aerospace engineering community and has been an active member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), writing numerous papers, organizing and chairing sessions at conferences, serving on technical committees, and actively participating in workshops. His colleagues universally felt he was personable, approachable, and pleasant to work with. His collaborative nature, intelligence, work ethic, and humility are an inspiration to the many successful engineers he educated and worked with. Steve’s technical abilities and dedication made him a researcher whose presence will always be felt. Steve's celebration of life service will be live streamed on Weaver Funeral Home Facebook page.

Steve supported St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. If you would like to donate in his name, a memorial fund can be found at https://fundraising.stjude.org/goto/SteveLouisKarman. Donations can also be mailed to:  In memory of Steve Louis Karman, St. Jude Children’s Hospital, 501 St. Jude Place, Memphis, TN 38105. You may alternatively make a donation in honor of Steve Karman to the Society of Women Engineers and Girls Who Code.