David Turnbull (materials scientist)

David Turnbull ( born February 18, 1915 in near Kewanee, Illinois, USA, † April 28, 2007 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States) was an American physicist and materials scientist. He is known for his pioneering work on the kinetics of phase transitions in solids, nucleation in melts and the growth of crystals, diffusion in metals and glass formation.

Life

David Turnbull was born on his parents' farm in Illinois. In 1936, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Monmouth College and graduated in physical chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana in 1939 with the PhD title from. After a few years at the Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland, Ohio, he worked from 1946 to 1962 at the Research Institute of General Electric in Schenectady, where he headed the department of chemical metallurgy. In 1962 he became professor of applied physics at Harvard University in Cambridge, where he became Professor Emeritus in 1985. David Turnbull died on 28 April 2007 at his home in Cambridge.

Honors

David Turnbull was one of the first winners of the Von Hippel Award of the American Materials Research Society. Other prices include:

• Japan Prize
• Acta Metallurgica Gold Medal
• New Materials Prize of the American Physical Society
• Franklin Medal
• Hume - Rothery Award

The Materials Research Society awards each year at its fall meeting, the David Turnbull Lectureship, an award " in recognition of the career of a scientist, the extraordinary amounts for the understanding of material properties and phenomena has done - through research, publication and teaching, according to the model of the life's work of David Turnbull. "