Paul Howell died on September 12, 2026, in Westbrook, Maine.

Lab instructor in Physics, 2017-2023.

From: President Zaki <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2026 5:04 PM
Subject: Sad news regarding Paul Howell

Dear faculty, staff, and students,

I am writing with the sad news that Paul Howell, who was a former lab instructor for physics at Bowdoin and who worked part-time assisting the physics department, died on September 12. Paul worked as an instructor at Bowdoin from 2017 until he retired in 2023 and then more recently as a part-time employee. Paul’s contributions included important work helping Assistant Professor Fe McBride in the calibration and commissioning phase for the Benjamin W. Hill-Lam ’13 Observatory, which was dedicated last May after a two-year process of relocation and renovation.

By all accounts, Paul was a brilliant, thoughtful, and caring man with a great sense of humor. I know he will be missed tremendously by the physics department and others on campus and in the astronomy community more broadly. Paul’s passion for the night skies of Maine and astrophotography was clear, and his advocacy for dark skies and work teaching Bowdoin students and others was inspiring. His fascination for everything related to space and astronomy inspired him to include model rocket launches in introductory physics labs. He sat on the board of directors and served on the dark skies committee of the Southern Maine Astronomers Club, an organization he helped to found in 2004. A commercial photographer in an earlier career, Paul was an accomplished astronomical photographer, and one of his stunning photos of the stars and galaxies—a Hubble Space Telescope portrait of M51—was selected by NASA as a “photo of the day” in 2020.

Paul earned a bachelor of science degree in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and completed the coursework for a PhD in astrophysics at Boston University. Before he began working in applied physics, he worked for many years as a scientist and engineer at National Semiconductor. Interested and experienced in research, he spent forty nights acquiring photometric and spectroscopic data at Lowell Observatory and Kitt Peak. He has shared that he wanted to live a life directly connected with learning and discovery, and he clearly did just that.

I know you join me in offering our condolences to Paul’s wife, Colette, his family, and friends. He will be missed.

Sincerely,
Safa