Donald Othmer
| Donald Othmer | |
|---|---|
Donald and Mildred Othmer, 1950
|
|
| Born |
May 11, 1904 Omaha, Nebraska, U.S. |
| Died | November 1, 1995 (aged 91) New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Institutions | Eastman Kodak, Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Polytechnic University |
| Alma mater |
University of Nebraska-Lincoln (B.S., Chemical Engineering, 1924) University of Michigan (M.S., Chemical Engineering, 1925; Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, 1927) |
| Notable awards |
Chemical Pioneer Award (1977) Perkin Medal (1978) E. V. Murphree Award (1978) |
Donald Frederick Othmer (May 11, 1904 – November 1, 1995) was an American professor of chemical engineering, an inventor, multi-millionaire and philanthropist, whose most famous work is the Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology.
Othmer was born in Omaha, Nebraska on May 11, 1904. He attended Omaha Central High School, then gained a scholarship to the chemical engineering program at Armour Institute of Technology (now Illinois Institute of Technology), in Chicago. However, he changed to the University of Nebraska, graduating in 1924 in Chemical Engineering. He completed a Masters at the University of Michigan in 1925 and completed a PhD thesis entitled "The effect of temperature, purity and temperature drop on the rate of condensation of steam" at the same university in 1927.
From 1927 to 1931 he worked as an engineer at the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York, producing 40 patents. In 1932 he joined the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn as an instructor in the newly independent Department of Chemical Engineering. He was to remain there. In 1937 he became Head of Department, which continued until 1961, when he was named Distinguished Professor. His duties ended in 1976 when he was made Professor Emeritus, but he never officially retired and was actively involved with what was by then the Polytechnic University until his death on November 1, 1995.
In 1950, following a divorce, he married his second wife, Mildred Jane Topp, also from Omaha, and an English major from the University of Nebraska. They were together for 45 years and she died in 1998.
He was a teacher for nearly 60 years, supervising many masters and doctoral students. While an academic, he continued to invent, and is credited with more than 150 US patents, as well as 350 papers, including important ones on the theory and practice of distillation.
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