Mechanical engineering

In this interview, David Zierler, Oral Historian for AIP, interviews Mr. Howard Baum, a retired mechanical engineer. He discusses his volunteer work with the Cincinnati VA Medical Center and his interest in helping volunteers transition back to civilian life with computer training. He recounts his childhood in Cincinnati, and he discusses his education at the University of Cincinnati, where he focused on industrial design. Baum describes his work in a variety of industries after he graduated, and he explained the value of drafting in the 1970s. He discusses his involvement with OSHA and safety protocols during his work for the Clovernook Center for the Blind, and he describes how the major shift of overseas production happened gradually and how it affected him personally. Baum describes his career as a college professor of ergonomics, and at the end of the interview, he reflects on all of the design work he was able to do prior to the era of computer-aided design.

In this Oral History, Prof. Roger Tanner (University of Sydney) discusses his life and career in rheology with Gareth McKinley. Starting with discussion of his time growing up in England and working at the Bristol Aeroplane Company, attending Bristol University and then going to UC Berkeley on a King George VI Memorial Fellowship for a Master’s degree in control engineering. He describes the development of his interest in lubrication flows in bearings and first exposure to rheology through Sir Frank Leslie and Arthur Lodge during his doctoral studies in Manchester, UK. He discusses in depth his work in Manchester, University of Sydney and Brown University as well as sabbaticals at the Rheology Research Center in Wisconsin and at the University of Delaware and time in academic administration as Pro-Vice Chancellor of Research. The historical development of the Australian Society of Rheology (ASR) is outlined as well as organization of the quadrennial International Congress of Rheology in Sydney (1988). He explains his first exposure to computational finite element schemes for analysis of viscoelastic die swell with Bruce Caswell at Brown as well as his long-standing interests in simulating viscoelastic flows in complex geometries, constitutive model development (with Nhan Phan-Thien amongst others) and most recently the fluid dynamics of particulate suspensions with viscoelastic matrices. 

Interview with Allan Pierce, Professor Emeritus at Boston University and President of the Cape Cod Institute for Science and Engineering. Pierce recounts his childhood in Kansas and New Mexico, where his father worked on building aircraft during World War II. He remembers tinkering with a chemistry set as a child and building his own little radio. Pierce describes his undergraduate studies in physics at New Mexico State University and winning an NSF Fellowship to attend MIT for free for his graduate studies. Upon completing his PhD, Pierce recalls working for RAND Corporation on defense-related issues at the height of the Cold War, as well as his burgeoning interest in acoustics. Pierce describes his career trajectory that took him to Avco Space Systems Division, the Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT, and Georgia Tech. He recounts his research in a variety of fields such as helicopter noise, sonic booms, wind turbines, and underwater acoustics. Pierce talks about the genesis of his famed acoustics textbook and speaks in detail about several topics in the book, such as the wave theory of sound, plane waves, and room acoustics. Pierce describes moving to Penn State, then Boston University, and finally the formation of the Cape Code Institute. He also reflects on his time as Editor in Chief of the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. The interview concludes with Pierce reflecting on his unique historical perspective and appreciation for acoustics, and how he has seen the ASA change over the years.

The interviewee has not given permission for this interview to be shared at this time. Transcripts will be updated as they become available to the public. For any questions about this policy, please contact [email protected].

Interview with Malcolm Crocker, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Auburn University. Crocker recounts his childhood in England during World War II where he was inspired by the aircraft industry in the UK at the time. He describes attending University of Southampton for his undergraduate and master’s degrees in the aeronautical engineering program. Crocker then worked at Wyle Labs in Huntsville Alabama before returning to England to complete his graduate studies at Liverpool. He describes accepting an offer to join the faculty at Purdue University as an associate professor, where he stayed for many years. Crocker then was offered a position as department head at Auburn. Crocker describes his involvement in the Institute of Noise Control Engineering (INCE) and his role as a founding director of INCE International. He also details his activity within the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), where he has served on the Noise Committee and the History Committee.