Karl Boer was born and educated in Germany, where he was a member of the faculty at Humboldt University in Berlin. He left Germany in 1961, when the Berlin Wall was being erected. Since 1962, he has been at the University of Delaware, where he is professor of physics and engineering. He founded the Institute of Energy Conversion there in 1971. From 1972 until 1979, he was chairman of the board of SES, Inc., a subsidiary of Shell Oil Company, and he is a fellow of the American Physical Society. In his honor, the University of Delaware created the Karl W. Boer Solar Energy Award. The first recipient was former President Jimmy Carter, who accepted the award in February 1993. Boer has made… significant contributions to energy research on solar (photovoltaic) cells. Since 1970 he has published more than 290 research articles on solid state physics, including 80 on photovoltaic cells. He is a cofounder of Physics StatusSolidi, a journal on solid state physics research, and is currently editor-in-chief of the authoritative series Advances in Solar Energy. Boer's articles on solar energy cover the semiconductor physics of solar cells, the solar spectrum, and demonstrations of solar-system operation. He holds 28 patents in solid state and solar devices.