Keck joined MIT in 1965 as the Ford Professor of Engineering and developed teaching and research programs in thermodynamics, kinetics and mechanics related to energy generation and air pollution. Keck was the author of dozens of papers, and his research at MIT focused on atomic and molecular kinetics, thermodynamics and high-temperature gas dynamics. He was recognized by the National Academy of Engineering for “developing innovative, widely used concepts for modeling coupled chemical and physical phenomena in engine combustion and high-temperature flow.”