Contributions of Prof . James R . Melcher to engineering education

This paper reviews the teaching and research career of the late Professor James R. Melcher. It describes his approach to the teaching of electric and magnetic fields bolstered by the lecture demonstrations he had developed. He is considered the founder of the modern day field of electrohydrodynamics. His undergraduate courses, reinforced by educational films which are briefly described, gave students an introduction into the field. His graduate courses and research extended more broadly into fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and physical chemistry. He spoke and wrote on the need for a national energy policy and was concerned about the effect of military expenditures on US commercial competitiveness. 1. Brief overview of career Professor James R. Melcher, an engineer, scientist, and educator widely respected for his practical applications of the principles of electromagnetism and continuum electromechanics and a member of the Depar tment of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1962, died on 5 January 1991 at the age of 54. At the t ime of his death, he was the director of the MIT Labora tory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems and was the Julius A. Stratton Professor of Electrical Engineering and Physics. Considered an outstanding educator he received the Outstanding Teacher Award from the New England Section of the American Society for Engineering Education in 1969 and the M I T Graduate Student Teaching Award in 1978 Prof. Melcher was noted for his dynamic lectures and as a leader in teaching electromagnetic field theory and continuum electromechanics to both undergraduate and graduate students. Through his research and textbooks he is the founder of the modern day field of electrohydrodynamics, the interaction of electric fields with fluids. He was a critical judge of the quality of his students' work, but did not spare * Corresponding author. 0304-3886/95/$09.50 © 1995 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. SSDI O304-3886(94)OOO31-X 110 M. Zahn, H.A. Haus/Journal of Electrostatics 34 (1995) 109-162 effort and concern in helping his students and colleagues reach the high standards that he set for himself and them. He has deeply affected the lives, careers, and values of his students and colleagues. This paper will describe his major contributions to engineering education, as course innovator and lecturer, and as research supervisor. It will also briefly describe his personal qualities as an articulate, thoughtful, and intensely moral human being. A list of his publications and of doctoral, engineers, masters, and bachelors theses that he has supervised is given in the appendices. James R. Melcher (JRM) was born in Giard, Iowa on 5 July 1936. He received a BSEE in 1957 and a MS in Nuclear Engineering in 1958, both from Iowa State University. He was a research assistant at the Ames Laboratory of the US Atomic Energy Commission. His first journal paper, based on his master's thesis "A Useful Analogy for Single-Group Neutron Diffusion Theory" [A.1] won the American Nuclear Society's First Mark Mills Award. He came to MIT for his doctoral work in electrical engineering, was a teaching assistant in the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering, and received the Ph.D. in 1962. He was an Assistant Professor from 1962-1966, an Associate Professor from 1966-1969, and a Professor from 1969, all in the Department of Electrical Engineering at MIT. He spent 1971-72 on sabbatical with Sir Geoffrey I. Taylor at the Cavendish, Churchill College, Cambridge, England. When a memorial was held in honor of Sir Geoffrey, JRM was invited as one of the keynote speakers. They had first worked together at a MIT symposium on Electrohydrodynamics sponsored by the International Unions of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics and of Pure and Applied Physics, from 31 March to 1-2 April 1969, where Sir Geoffrey was Chairman and JRM was Secretary [A.32]. He was Director of the MIT High Voltage Research Laboratory (HVRL) from 1980-1984, and then with the merging of HVRL with the MIT Continuum Electromechanics Laboratory and the MIT Electric Power Systems Energy Laboratory (EPSEL), to form the MIT Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (LEES) he was briefly co-director of LEES from September-December 1984 and then Director from January 1985 until his death. Since 1981 he was also the first J.A. Stratton Professor in Electrical Engineering and Physics, particularly appropriate because both he and Dr. Stratton were inspired researchers and teachers of electromagnetism. In his own words from his resume, he described his research interests as following: "As an engineering science, continuum electromechanics draws upon the areas of electromagnetics, fluid and solid mechanics, heat transfer, and physical chemistry. Typically, electromagnetic fields are exploited for the control, sensing or augmentation of processes. Continuum electromechanics is interdisciplinary and has been shown to provide an overview that encourages the development of techniques and viewpoints that are not only applicable to systems coupled to electromagnetic fields, but to purely mechanical, thermal and electrochemical systems as well. Some of these universal viewpoints are described in the text Continuum Electromechanics I. Some 1J.R. Melcher, Continuum Electromechanics, MIT Press, 1981. M. Zahn, H.A. Haus/Journal of Electrostatics 34 (1995) 109-162 111 specific areas of research are electrohydrodynamics (augmentation of heat transfer and mixing), magnetohydrodynamics (metals processing and hydromagnetic stability), continuum feedback control (continuum robotics), sensors (electromechanical and electro-physiochemical), biophysical electromechanics (electromechanics of polymer membranes), microelectromechanical systems (for printing), electromechanical fluidized beds (airpollution control), macroscopic particle electromechanics in turbulent flows (electrostatic precipitators, electrostatic paint spraying and insulator contamination), insulation research (electrokinetics of liquid-insulator interfaces), electrically induced heating (for polymer processing) and electromechanical energy conversion (including new types of rotating machines)." His textbooks on both undergraduate and graduate levels had similar themes and their content overlapped, although the material was presented at the appropriate levels intended. Almost as valuable as the material presented are the problems at the end of each chapter which greatly reinforce the text material and often provide descriptions of practical applications. Homework problems were great learning experiences for his students. He took great care and effort in developing interesting and solvable homework problems, for it was also a way to teach himself new material. He did not feel that he completely understood a new concept until he could also formulate an undergraduate level homework problem. He received the following honors and awards: