Johannes Weertman (May 11, 1925 – October 13, 2018) was an American materials scientist and

geophysicist Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct investigations acros ...

Biography

Born in 1925 in

Fairfield, Alabama Fairfield is a city in western Jefferson County, Alabama, United States. It is part of the Birmingham metropolitan area and is located southeast of Pleasant Grove. The population was 10,000 at the 2020 census. Fairfield is home to Miles C ...

, Weertman served in the

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for conducting expeditionar ...

for three years. He then received from

Carnegie Institute of Technology Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

his bachelor's degree in 1948 and his Ph.D. in physics in 1951 under the supervision of James Koehler. As a postdoc Weertman was a Fulbright Fellow at the

École Normale Supérieure École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...

in Paris. Beginning in 1952 he was at the

US Naval Research Laboratory The United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) is the corporate research laboratory for the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. Located in Washington, DC, it was founded in 1923 and conducts basic scientific research, appl ...

. At Northwestern University he became in 1959 an associate professor and then a full professor; in 1963 he became there a professor of geophysics and from 1968 ''Walter P. Murphy Professor for Materials Science and Engineering'' (now professor emeritus). He was from 1967 to 1991 a consultant for the

Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos National Laboratory (often shortened as Los Alamos and LANL) is one of the sixteen research and development Laboratory, laboratories of the United States Department of Energy National Laboratories, United States Department of Energy ...

. In 1964 he was a visiting professor at

Caltech The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private university, private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small g ...

. From 1960 to 1975 he was a consultant for the US Army

Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory The Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) is a United States Army Corps of Engineers, Engineer Research and Development Center research facility headquartered in Hanover, New Hampshire, that provides scientific and engineering ...

. He was also a consultant for the Bain Laboratory of the US Steel Corporation and

Oak Ridge National Laboratory Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1943, the laboratory is sponsored by the United Sta ...

. In 1986 he was a visiting scientist at the Swiss reactor research institute and in 1971–1972 at

Scott Polar Research Institute The Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) is a centre for research into the polar regions and glaciology worldwide. It is a sub-department of the Department of Geography in the University of Cambridge, located on Lensfield Road in the south ...

in Cambridge.

Weertman Island Weertman Island () is the largest and southernmost of the Bennett Islands, lying in Hanusse Bay. It was mapped from air photos taken by Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE) (1947–48) and Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expe ...

off Antarctica is named after him. Weertman was married since 1950 to Julia Randall Weertman and had a son and a daughter. He died on October 13, 2018, at the age of 93.

Awards and honors

Seligman Crystal The Seligman Crystal is an award of the International Glaciological Society. The prize is "awarded from time to time to one who has made an outstanding scientific contribution to glaciology so that the subject is now enriched" and named after Ger ...

of the

International Glaciological Society The International Glaciological Society (IGS) was founded in 1936 to provide a focus for individuals interested in glaciology, practical and scientific aspects of snow and ice. It was originally known as the "Association for the Study of Snow an ...

, 1983 *Acta Metallurgica Gold Medal, 1980 *Champion H. Mathewson Gold Medal of the Metallurgical Society of AIME for work on creep and fatigue fracture, 1977 *

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

, 1970 *

Robert E. Horton Medal The Robert E. Horton Medal is given out by the American Geophysical Union to recognize "outstanding contributions to the geophysical aspects of hydrology". The award was created in 1974 and named after Robert E. Horton to honor his contributions t ...

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, Atmospheric science, atmospheric, Oceanography, ocean, Hydrology, hydrologic, Astronomy, space, and Planetary science, planetary scientists and enthusiasts that ...

, 1962 *

Fulbright Fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States cultural exchange programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people o ...

, 1951 *Fellow of

Geological Society of America The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of the geosciences. History The society was founded in Ithaca, New York, in 1888 by Alexander Winchell, John J. Stevenson, Charles H. Hi ...

, 1970 *Fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of ...

, 1975 *Fellow of the

, 1982

Selected publications

* with Julia R. Weertman: Elementary dislocation theory, Macmillan 1964, Oxford University Press 1993
Dislocation based fracture mechanics

World Scientific World Scientific Publishing is an academic publisher of scientific, technical, and medical books and journals headquartered in Singapore. The company was founded in 1981. It publishes about 600 books annually, with more than 170 journals in var ...

1996 * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weertman, Johannes 1925 births 2018 deaths American geophysicists Carnegie Mellon University alumni Northwestern University faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science People from Fairfield, Alabama People of the Scott Polar Research Institute Military personnel from Alabama Fellows of the American Geophysical Union Fellows of the Geological Society of America Writers from Alabama Fellows of the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society United States Marines