Dr. McIntyre R. Louthan, Jr.

2007 Henry Clifton Sorby Award Recipient

Dr. Louthan received his B.S. and M.S. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and his Ph.D. from Notre Dame. Currently, he is a consulting scientist in the Savannah River Technology Center of the Westinghouse Savannah River Co. He has 40 years of experience in materials selection and qualification for advanced nuclear systems, failure analysis, applied and fundamental research, and teaching. Previous assignments have included: Manager of Metals and Ceramics Research Group at SRL; Professor of Materials Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute; Adjunct Professor for ASM-International’s Materials Engineering Institute; consultant for industry, national laboratories, and legal profession; and Engineer/Scientist for contractors to U. S. Department of Energy.

Mac has published over 250 technical papers, edited nine books, and given several hundred invited lectures throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, and Australia. He is a Fellow in ASM International, past president and former member of the Board of Directors of the International Metallographic Society, Founding and current Editor of the Journal Practical Failure Analysis, on the Editorial Advisory Board for Materials Characterization, and was Series Editor of Microstructural Science from 1990-1995. Mac has served as a key reader for Metallurgical Transactions, as reviewer for Corrosion, as International Secretary of Alpha Sigma Mu (the Metallurgical Engineering Honor Society), and has been elected as a member of Tau Beta Pi, Alpha Sigma Mu, and Sigma Xi. He is currently a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Youth Science Foundation.

Dr. Louthan received Best Paper Awards from the International Metallographic Society in 1974 and 1983, the President’s Award from the International Metallographic Society in 1994, the ASM International Materials Engineering Institute’s Instructor of Merit Award in 1996, and the ASM International’s Distinguished Educator Award in 1997. He has also received the CNTA (Citizen for Nuclear Technology Awareness) Distinguished Scientist award in 2000, the Don Orth Award in 1994 and was selected for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Network of Senior Scientists and Engineers in 2000, and was elected chairman of that organization for 2003 to 2004. Most recently, he was part of the team which won the WSRC President’s Award in 2004.

Mac developed a lecture-talk entitled “Why Stuff Falls Apart,” to emphasize the importance of personal responsibility and ethics in professional activities. This lecture has been given several hundred times to high school, university, industrial and professional groups and as a keynote address to the annual meetings of the Materials Research Society, the International Metallographic Society, ASM International, and the Australian Institute of Metals. Mac continues to regularly present this talk to various DOE sites, the National Youth Science Camp, selected colleges and universities, and to service and professional organizations. Mac Louthan is a consultant. He is retired from Savannah River National Laboratory, Aiken, S.C., where he worked in various capacities.

Note: This story originally appeared in the June 2007 issue of SlipLines, Volume 35, Issue 2.