Alan Tower Waterman

Alan Tower Waterman
Born (1892-06-04)4 June 1892
Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York
Died 30 November 1967(1967-11-30) (aged 75)
Nationality US
Fields Physics
Institutions U. of Cincinnati
Yale
Office of Scientific Research and Development
Office of Naval Research
NSF
Alma mater Princeton
Notable awards Public Welfare Medal (1960)
Presidential Medal of Freedom (1963)
Waterman is seated at left; to his right are Presidential Press Secretary James Hagerty, Dr. S. Douglas Cornell and Dr. Alan Shapley. Standing: Dr. J. Wallace Joyce and Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus. Announcement of plans for the building and launching of the world's first man-made satellite, July 29, 1955. (NASA)

Alan Tower Waterman (June 4, 1892 November 30, 1967) was an American physicist.

Born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, he grew up in Northampton, Massachusetts. His father was a professor of physics at Smith College. Alan also became a physicist, doing his undergraduate and doctoral work at Princeton University, from which he obtained his Ph.D. in 1916.

He joined the faculty of the University of Cincinnati, and married Vassar graduate Mary Mallon (sister of H. Neil Mallon) there in August 1917. He later became a professor at Yale University, and moved to North Haven, Connecticut in 1929. During World War II, he took leave of absence from Yale to become director of field operations for the Office of Scientific Research and Development, and the family moved to Cambridge, MA. He continued his government work and became deputy chief of the Office of Naval Research. In 1950, he was appointed by President Truman as first director of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Waterman was awarded the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1960.[1] He served as director until 1963, when he retired and was subsequently awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He died in 1967.

Alan and Mary had six children: Alan Jr., an atmospheric physicist who taught at Stanford University, Neil, Barbara, Anne, and Guy, writer, climber, and conservationist. A daughter Mary died in childhood.

Possessed of a gentle nature, Alan Waterman was known for his calm and reasoned point of view. He believed in public service. Besides his scientific talents, he was an accomplished musician, revealing his sense of humor by walking the corridors of the National Science Foundation playing his bagpipes. He had a fine voice and singing together was a family ritual. An avid outdoorsman, Dr. Waterman canoed the rivers and lakes of northern Maine during extensive summer trips in the 1930s and 1940s. He was accompanied by his sons and colleagues, in particular Karl Compton, then president of MIT. Dr. Waterman was known to say that becoming a licensed Maine Guide meant possibly more to him than his NSF appointment.

The crater Waterman on the Moon is named after him, as is Mount Waterman in the Hughes Range of Antarctica. Since 1975, the National Science Foundation has annually issued the Alan T. Waterman Award (named in Waterman's honor) to a promising young researcher.

Sources

  1. "Public Welfare Medal". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved November 2015. Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
New office Director of the National Science Foundation
April 1951 - June 1963
Succeeded by
Leland J. Haworth

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Alan Tower Waterman
  1. Brown, Chip (2004). Good Morning Midnight. Riverhead Books. ISBN 1-57322-236-4.
  2. Waterman, Laura (2005). Losing the Garden: The Story of a Marriage. Shoemaker & Hoard. ISBN 1-59376-048-5.
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