Howard Kent Birnbaum (18 October 1932 Brooklyn, New York – 23 January 2005 Urbana, Illinois) was an American

metallurgist Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...

who was well known due to his works on the interaction of point, linear and planar defects in

plastic deformation In engineering, deformation refers to the change in size or shape of an object. ''Displacements'' are the ''absolute'' change in position of a point on the object. Deflection is the relative change in external displacements on an object. Strain ...

of materials. He received his BS in 1953 and MS in 1955 from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. In 1958 he received his PhD in metallurgy from

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Universit ...

. In 1958 he started teaching at the University of Chicago and joined University of Illinois in 1961.

Awards

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

- 1967 *Robert Franklin Mehl Gold Medal - The Metallurgical Society, American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers - 1986 *Von Hippel Award - Materials Research Society - 2002

Footnotes

References

*Karl A. Gschneider Jr., ''Howard K. Birnbaum'', Acta Materialia, Vol. 53 (2005), pp. 2545–2546 1932 births 2005 deaths Scientists from New York (state) American metallurgists Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni People from Brooklyn University of Chicago faculty University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society Fellows of the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society {{US-scientist-stub