Truell, Rohn

Rohn Truell (1913-1968), professor of applied mathematics, was born on April 6, 1913, in Washington, D. C. He earned a bachelor of science degree in engineering at Lehigh University in 1935, and received his Ph.D. degree from Cornell in 1941. He was a research physicist from 1942 to 1944 at the R.C.A. Laboratories in Princeton, and from 1944 to 1946 at Stromberg Carlson Company and Cornell University. In 1946 he was appointed assistant professor of physics at Brown. He was promoted to associate professor in 1946, and became professor of applied mathematics in 1951. He established the Metals Reseach Laboratory in 1948, and was chairman of the laboratory until his sudden death in Providence on January 10, 1968, following a stroke. The memorial minute of the faculty read:

“Rohn Truell was a gifted experimentalist, possessed great scientific insight, and was always aware of the interplay between theory and experimentation. He was one of the first to see the feasibility of studying solids by means of ultrasonics and the Metals Research Laboratory which he organized at Brown in 1948 rapidly became a leading world center in this field of research.”