Roger Knacke will retire as director of the School of Science at Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, effective June 30. Knacke has been with Penn State Behrend since 1992.

For 18 years, Knacke has served as the chief academic and administrative officer of the college's School of Science as well as a professor of physics and astronomy. During Knacke's tenure, enrollments in the school have been strong and increasing due, in part, to the college's small class sizes coupled with student opportunities to engage with faculty members and conduct undergraduate research. The School of Science has 55 full-time faculty members and offers eight bachelor's degree programs.

Previously, Knacke taught at the State University of New York at Stony Brook for two decades. He was a visiting scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in California and at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Germany. He also served as a senior scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Knacke was a Whiting Fellow in Physics in 1967 and Lick Fellow in Astronomy in 1968-69. He is the author and co-author of numerous published articles. His research has been funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation.

Knacke's research has included studies of interstellar matter -- the gases and dust in space between the stars, the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, and the environments and conditions around young stars where planets are forming. Five students completed their doctoral degrees under his direction.

In 2004, an asteroid was named in honor of his work in astronomy, "4312 Knacke." The asteroid orbits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It was discovered on Nov. 29, 1978, and is roughly 2 to 3 miles in diameter.

Knacke earned his bachelor's and doctoral degrees, both in physics, from the University of California, Berkeley. He plans to return to Santa Cruz, Calif., where his two children, Zachary and Elizabeth, also reside.