Charles Edward Munroe (May 24, 1849 – December 7, 1938) was an American

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...

, discoverer of the

Munroe effect A shaped charge is an explosive charge shaped to form an explosively formed penetrator (EFP) to focus the effect of the explosive's energy. Different types of shaped charges are used for various purposes such as cutting and forming metal, ini ...

, and chair of the Department of Chemistry at the

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C. Chartered in 1821 by the United States Congress, GWU is the largest Higher educat ...

.Donald R. Kennedy
''History of the Shaped Charge Effect: The First 100 Years''
(Los Alamos, New Mexico: Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1990), pages 55–56. He was born in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

and studied at the Lawrence scientific school of Harvard, graduating in 1871. He then took a job as an assistant professor of chemistry at the college until 1874, when he moved to Annapolis to become a professor of chemistry at the

United States Naval Academy The United States Naval Academy (US Naval Academy, USNA, or Navy) is a federal service academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It was established on 10 October 1845 during the tenure of George Bancroft as Secretary of the Navy. The Naval Academy ...

. In 1886, he joined the Naval Torpedo Station and War College at

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and northeast of New Yor ...

as a chemist, where he discovered the Munroe effect, the basis for explosive shaped charges. From 1892–1917 Munroe was head of the Department of Chemistry and Dean of the Corcoran Scientific School at the Columbian University (renamed

in 1904). During the same time period, he was also the Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and earned a Ph.D. in 1894 and LL.D in 1912 from the University. In 1919 he became Dean Emeritus of the School of Graduate Studies and Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, roles he kept until he died. He wrote over 100 books on explosives and chemistry, and was appointed in 1900 by the Swedish Academy of Science to nominate the candidate for the Nobel Prize in chemistry. In addition, Munroe served as president of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

in 1898 and as a consultant to the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

and the

United States Bureau of Mines For most of the 20th century, the United States Bureau of Mines (USBM) was the primary United States government agency conducting scientific research and disseminating information on the extraction, processing, use, and conservation of mineral ...

References

External links

Charles Munroe Papers Online Collection
Special Collections Research Center, Estelle and Melvin Gelman Library, The George Washington University.

References

External links

Further reading