Robert C. Reid (June 11, 1924, Denver, Colorado – May 18, 2006, Lexington, Massachusetts) was a

chemical engineer In the field of engineering, a chemical engineer is a professional, equipped with the knowledge of chemical engineering, who works principally in the chemical industry to convert basic raw materials into a variety of products and deals with the ...

and professor at MIT. He received his B.A. from the

U.S. Merchant Marine Academy The United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA or Kings Point) is a United States service academy in Kings Point, New York. It trains its midshipmen (as students at the academy are called) to serve as officers in the United States Merchant ...

and a master's degree from Purdue University as well as an Sc.D. from MIT. He is best known for his work in the field of thermodynamics, particularly in co-authoring the thermodynamics reference book "Thermodynamics and Its Applications" with Mike Modell. He also co-wrote "The Properties of Gases and Liquids," another reference work. He was the editor of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Journal, AIchE Journal, from 1972 to 1976, and directed the

American Institute of Chemical Engineers The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) is a professional organization for chemical engineers. AIChE was actually established in 1908 to distinguish chemical engineers as a profession independent of chemists and mechanical engineer ...

from 1969 to 1971. He taught at MIT for 34 years, from 1951 to 1985, and was famous for dressing up as Willard Gibbs for certain lectures. He pushed to change the MIT chemical engineering department's unofficial policy of only hiring its own graduates. In addition to his work in the field of chemical engineering, Robert Reid served in the Merchant Marine during World War II aboard an oil tanker.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reid, Robert United States Merchant Marine Academy alumni 1924 births 2006 deaths People from Denver American chemical engineers 20th-century American engineers United States Merchant Mariners of World War II Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty