Joseph Victor Smith FRS was a British

mineralogist Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical mineralogy, optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifact (archaeology), artifacts. Specific s ...

and crystallographer, best known for his work on feldspars and

zeolites Zeolites are a group of several Microporous material, microporous, crystalline aluminosilicate minerals commonly used as commercial adsorption, adsorbents and Catalysis, catalysts. They mainly consist of silicon, aluminium, oxygen, and have the ge ...

, and on lunar samples returned during the

Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...

missions.

Life and career

Smith was born and brought up on a farm near

Crich Crich is a village and civil parish in the English county of Derbyshire. Besides the village of Crich, the civil parish includes the nearby villages of Fritchley, Whatstandwell and Wheatcroft, Derbyshire, Wheatcroft. The population of the civi ...

Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It borders Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and South Yorkshire to the north, Nottinghamshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south-east, Staffordshire to the south a ...

, and attended school in

Fritchley Fritchley is a small village in Derbyshire, England, situated to the south of Crich and north of Ambergate. It falls under the civil parish of Crich. To the east of the village is the ruin of a windmill. Fritchley has an active Congregational Ch ...

. He won a scholarship to

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, commonly known as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and ...

in 1945, where he studied natural sciences, specialising in physics and graduating in 1948. He remained in Cambridge to study for a PhD in crystallography, which he completed in 1951. In 1951 he married Brenda Wallis, and then sailed on the Queen Mary to take up a fellowship at the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institute of Washington. From 1954 to 1956, Smith held the post of demonstrator at the University of Cambridge, and he later held posts at

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

and the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

, where he was appointed professor in 1960; a post he held until he retired in 2005. At Chicago, Smith played a leading role in establishing instruments and capacity for the micro-analysis of materials. After setting up an early

electron microprobe An electron microprobe (EMP), also known as an electron probe microanalyzer (EPMA) or electron micro probe analyzer (EMPA), is an analytical tool used to non-destructively determine the chemical composition of small volumes of solid materials. I ...

, Smith later led the way for X-ray

synchrotron A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The strength of the magnetic field which bends the particle beam i ...

analysis of a wide range of materials by establishing the Centre for Advanced Radiation Sources (CARS), using beamlines at the Advanced Photon Source and the

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Lemont, Illinois, Lemont, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1946, the laboratory is owned by the United Sta ...

Books

Smith wrote several research monographs, on the structure, properties and compositions of the feldspar minerals. *JV Smith, 1974, Feldspar minerals: crystal structure and physical properties *JV Smith, 1974, Feldspar minerals: chemical and textural properties

Awards

In recognition of his contributions to mineralogy, Smith was awarded the Murchison Medal of the

Geological Society of London The Geological Society of London, known commonly as the Geological Society, is a learned society based in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest national geological society in the world and the largest in Europe, with more than 12,000 Fellows. Fe ...

in 1980, and the

Roebling Medal The Roebling Medal is the highest award of the Mineralogical Society of America for scientific eminence as represented primarily by scientific publication of outstanding original research in mineralogy. The award is named for Colonel Washington A. ...

of the

Mineralogical Society of America The Mineralogical Society of America (MSA) is a scientific membership organization. MSA was founded in 1919 for the advancement of mineralogy, crystallography, geochemistry, and petrology, and promotion of their uses in other sciences, industry, ...

in 1982. He was elected

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the Fellows of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural science, natural knowledge, incl ...

in 1978 and was elected to the United States'

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

in 1986. Smith's archives are held at the University of Chicago.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Joseph Victor 1928 births 2007 deaths People from Derbyshire Alumni of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Fellows of the Royal Society Murchison Medal winners Crystallographers