Morris Cohen, 93 - MIT Metallurgy Professor
Bob Feigel
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-cohen13jun13,1,926870.story?coll=la-news-obituaries
OBITUARIES
Morris Cohen, 93; MIT Metallurgy Professor
By Myrna Oliver - Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
June 13, 2005
Morris Cohen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology metallurgist who
helped develop the modern field of materials science and engineering
that led to processing high-strength steel, has died. He was 93.
Cohen died May 27 at his home in Swampscott, Mass., of natural causes
of aging, MIT officials announced.
A specialist in how such materials as iron are processed, Cohen earned
the national Medal of Science in 1977 and the Kyoto Prize for advanced
technology in 1987.
He taught at MIT from 1936 until long after his official retirement in
1987, after earning both his bachelor's and doctoral degrees at the
institution. He built a 70-year relationship with MIT, which in 1974
established a chair in his name and gave him its faculty achievement
award.
Cohen's interest in metals began in childhood in Chelsea, Mass., where
his family produced and refined lead-based alloys used in metal type
and solders.
The much-admired professor "transformed the discipline of metallurgy
via his intellect, vision and personal effort into modern materials
science and engineering," Edwin L. Thomas said in a statement from MIT
announcing Cohen's death. Thomas has held the Morris Cohen chair in
the school's Materials Science and Engineering section since 1989.
Cohen did much to define the new discipline, Thomas said, with his
influential report "Materials and Man's Needs" written for the
National Academy of Sciences.
The metallurgist also wrote widely on such topics as physical
metallurgy, strengthening behavior of materials and mechanical
behavior of metals.
Throughout his long academic career, Cohen maintained a close
relationship with federal science and defense programs.
During World War II, he was associate director of MIT's section of the
Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb. He also served as
official investigator for the federal Office of Scientific Research
and Development.
Cohen was a member of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration advisory council from 1980 to 1983. Earlier he served
as consultant to the Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of
Defense and was on the National Materials Advisory Board.
He was a founder and former president of Temple Sinai in Marblehead,
Mass.
Widowed by the death of his wife, Ruth, Cohen is survived by his son,
Joel, of San Rafael, Calif.; two sisters, Louise Polansky of Los
Angeles and Charlotte Freed of Chestnut Hill, Mass; three
grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. A daughter, Barbara
Nordwind, also preceded him in death.
"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen
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