Inr. J. Hear Mass Muw Tmnsfrr. Vol. 24, No. 12. pp. 1861 1862, 1981.
Pergamon PressLtd.

Printed in Great Britain.

PROFESSOR WARREN M. ROHSENOWON HIS 60TH BIRTHDAYPROFESSOR
Warren M. Rohsenow celebratedhis 60thbirthday this year. He was born on 12 February 1921
in Chicago. His German grandparents
emigrated tothe U.S.A. in the second half of 19th century.
He attended
Northwestern
University where hereceived his B.S. degree in MechanicalEngineering.
Shortly afterwards he transferred to Yale University
where he received M.Eng. degree in 1943 and D.Eng.
degree in 1944. At Yale, as teaching assistant in
Mechanical Engineering, he taught laboratory courses
in Steam Power and Automotive
Engineering,
andfrom 1943 to 1944, as instructor
in MechanicalEngineering, he gave classes in Thermodynamics
andHeat Power.
From 1944 to 1946 he served as a Lieutenant in theU.S. Navy and was assigned to the Gas Turbine
Division, U.S. Navy Engineering Experiment Stationin Annapolis, Maryland. He was also consultanttoNDRC-Columbia
University group on aircraft component design-from
1943-1945. This early work wasmostly in the area of gas turbine performance,heattransfer measurements
and conduction heat transfer.
In July 1946 he joined the Mechanical Engineering
Departmentof the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology where his appointment
marked the beginningof an era for that departmentin the field of heattransfer. Shortly after his arrival the basement
ofbuilding No. 7 at MIT became what is now known as
the MIT Heat Transfer Laboratory.
The work on

HMT24:12-4

phase-change heat transfer and two-phase flow carriedout there has been at the forefront of this field since the1950s and many of the findings have enjoyed widespread application in industry. Professor Rohsenow
has always emphasized
the contributionsof bothstudents and colleagues to the international reputationof the MIT Heat Transfer Laboratory.
The classroom teaching of heat transfer at MIT,headed by Professor Rohsenow, has always placedstrong emphasis
on fundamentals
and practiceoriented problems. The pioneer text by W. H. McAdams was used initially, supplemented by classroom
notes prepared by Professor Rohsenow. Most of thismaterial on heat and mass transfer was ultimately
published in the book Heat, Mass and Momentum
Transfer by Rohsenow and Choi (Prentice-Hall,1961).
The book is still one of the texts used at MIT for thepopular advanced heat transfer course.
Professor Rohsenow has authored or co-authoredwell over 100 journal papers and many technicalreports and conference presentations.
He is senior
editor of the Handbook of Heat Trunsfer (McGrawHill, 1973). He also edited Developments in Heat
Transfer(MIT Press, 1964) and has contributed
chapters to a number of handbooks
and books onengineering.
Probably his most important contributionsin heattransfer have been in boiling and condensation.
Theanalysis and correlations
presented in his two early1861

1862

E. N. GANIC and J. P. HARTNUT

papers (A method of correiating heat transfer data forsurface boiling of liquids, Trans. ASME 74 (6), 1952;
and Heat transfer with boiling under natural andforced convection, Symposium on Heat Transfer at
Uniwsify o~M~c~i~a~,July l&19,1952, University ofMichigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1952) are landmarks inthis area of heat transfer.
Beyond being an outstanding leader in heat transfer
research, Professor Rohsenow is a mechanical engineer with deep insight into engineering problems ingeneral and a wealth of information on matters
involving technology development. He has been aconsultant to many major corporations, has served ona number of U.S. government committees, and haslectured all over the world on various aspects of heattransfer. His efforts, stature and leadership have certainly contributed to MIT’s reputation as one of theworld’s ieading research and teaching centers.
All of Professor Rohsenow’s work at MIT has been
intimately connected with education. Most of his
research was organized to involve graduate students
working towards their degrees. He is known as an
outstanding educator capable of developing the individual talents of his students while at the same time
instilling in them the self-confidence necessary forprofessional success. This is reflected in the list ofstudents who completed their doctorates with Professor Rohsenow over the past thirty years*: J. A.
Clark, P. Griffith, R. Nickerson, V. S. Arpaci, J. C.
Chato, P, J. Berenson, M. M. Chen, A. E. Bergles, R. S.
Dougall, S. P. Sukhatme, W. F. Laverty, P. J. Marto,N. J. Todreas, M. M. Yovanovich, B, B. Mikic, D. G.
Kroger, R. Forslund, I. Shai, S. Bae, J. S. Maulbetsch,S. J. Hynek, C. W. Deane, S. J. Wilcox, R. K. Sakhuja,
J. J. Lorenz, D. P. Traviss, 0. C. Iloije, D. N. Plummer,
W. Mack, A. Singh, E. N. Ganic, G. E. Kendall and G.
L. Yoder.
Many of these former students have gone on toprofessorships at leading institutions, not only in theU.S., but across the globe. Others have moved into
leadership positions in industry and government.
Professor Rohsenow has been a very active memberof the ASME since 1943. He was one of the earlyadvocates of the “Inte~ationaI
Assembly for Heat
Transfer Conferences” founded in 1966, which organizes the international heat transfer conference held
every four years. Also, he was one of the founders of the*With apologies for any omission-E.N.C. and J.P.H.

International Center for Heat and Mass Transfer inYugoslavia and a founding member of the Editorial
Advisory Board of the International Journal of Heatand Mass Transfer. He also serves on the Editorialadvisory board of several other journals.
His outstanding contributions to the field of heattransfer have not gone unnoticed. A partial list of hisawards includes :-Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal Award of ASME(1951);-YaleEngineering Association Award for Advancement of Basic and Applied Science (1952);-Junior Award of ASME for Boiling Heat Transfer
Correlation Method (1952);-Merit Award, Northwestern University (1955);-Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences(1956);-ASME Heat Transfer Division memorial Award(1967);-Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1969);-Max Jakob Memorial Award (1971);-Member,National Academy of Engineering(1975).

Although occupied with MIT and many otherprofessional responsibilities Professor Rohsenow is a
devoted husband, father and grandfather. He and hiswife Towneley raised five children, and to date, two ofthem have chosen university professorships as a career.
A visit with the Rohsenow family is always a pleasure.
Graduate students are frequent guests in their house,
where they can play one of a dozen instruments in the“orchestra room”. Professor Rohsenow, a first-classmusician, is well remembered by students from all
MIT departments for his outst~ding ~rformance on
the piano especially during the Christmas festivities.
Professor Rohsenow is currently busy with his
research on non-equilibrium
effects in post-dryoutheat transfer and thin film CHF-phenomena.
Onbehalf of his former students, his colleagues and his
friends from all over the world we wish him a happy
birthday and many more years of successful
accomplishments.
E. N. GANIC
J. P. HARTNETT
university of Illinois, Chicago