Dear Colleagues,

I am sorry to forward the sad news below, from Nick Peppas.  One of our own has passed away…

Arvind

From: Peppas, Nicholas A [mailto:peppas@che.utexas.edu]
Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 1:11 AM
To: Arvind Varma; Arvind Varma
Subject: Robert Vaughn dead

Hi Arvind

Professor Robert Vaughn, former professor of Purdue ChE, passed away on August 4, 2010. Vaughn was best known as the 1958 recipient of the AP Colburn Award

In my history (pp 116-117) I write

The first faculty member hired by Golding was Robert Donald Vaughn
(1930- , B.S. '51 Purdue University, M.Ch.E.53, Ph.D.'56, both from the
University of Delaware) who joined Purdue in September of   1960. At
Delaware he had worked on non-Newtonian fluid mechanics under the direc-
tion of Arthur B. Metzner. Along with Metzner, he received the Allan P. Colburn Award of
AIChE in 1958. From 1955 to 1960 he worked for Shell Development. A
brilliant researcher, Vaughn did significant work in polymer rheology. He
was promoted to Associate Professor in 1962 and left Purdue in 1964, disil-
lusioned by the events of those days. He was subsequently employed by
W.R. Grace & Co. (1964-67) and Wyandotte Chemical Co. (1967-79).
He is now Manager of Development for Exxon Company

In fact, he retired from Exxon in 1985 and then served as a consultant.

You will find his photo on page 122

Right:
Robert G. Squires (left) and Robert D. Vaughn in September 1963.

He received (p 231) the 1963 Shreve Prize for research

The Shreve Prize for Chemical Processing

The Shreve Prize for Chemical Processing was established by R. Norris and
Eleanor B. Shreve in 1960 to recognize outstanding research contributions in the
area of chemical processing by a ChE faculty member. The recipient was
selected by a committee consisting of Shreve, two alumni of the School working
in industry, the Dean of Engineering, and one of the officers of the Indianapolis
Section of AIChE. The award was accompanied by a check for $500. Consider-
ing that the typical salary of an Assistant Professor in 1960 was about $7,800 a
year, the amount of $500 was significant. The recipients of this award were the following:
...........
1963   Robert D. Vaughn



Most prominent among his former students was Gary Poehlein who did his MS with
Vaughn in 1963. When Vaughn left, Gary continued with Jack Woods

Please tell the colleagues. I know Squires and Albright remember him well

Nicholas