The year 2007 saw the retirement of four Whiting School faculty legends. In the reminiscences that follow, some of the people whose lives were forever changed by these stellar academicians share their memories…
Professor Bob Green
When it came to Professor Bob Green, Sandy Buxbaum ’79, MS ’83, PhD ’86 and his classmates knew how to get their papers and projects looked at immediately. “Professor Green was a neat freak,” recalls Buxbaum. “He had fanatically tidy stacks on his desk and shelves; in fact, the piles on his desk were squared perfectly to the corners, so if you were dropping off a paper and wanted to make sure he saw it, you placed it on the diagonal.”
But it wasn’t difficult for Buxbaum to grab the attention of the professor and advisor he had for almost a decade, as he completed three degrees in the Materials Science and Engineering Department. “Professor Green was incredibly loyal to his students. He helped us get exposure and opportunities to show our work at national meetings,” says Buxbaum. “And once you were on his team, you had a strong advocate forever. Green was an energetic—and of course super-organized—guy, and he loved a good joke. He’d even stop a lecture right smack in the middle to share a new joke he’d heard.”
Though Buxbaum’s father, Bob, never studied with Green, he did get his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Hopkins in mechanical engineering and also created a small endowment for the department. “Professor Green was a special help to my son—academically and personally. He was the kind of teacher who truly gave a damn,” says Bob Buxbaum ’51, MS ’53.
“Sandy and I remember him always saying, ‘I did this my own self.’ It’s a phrase we associate with him and often say it to each other to remind us of him. Green was easy to like and easy to respect. He was truly dedicated as a professor.”
At a roast for Green—who was named the Theophilus Halley Smoot Professor of Engineering in 1998, and who retired recently after being a member of the faculty since 1960—Sandy Buxbaum and a classmate glued a stack of coins together to present to Green. “He’d always play with the coins in his pocket, stack them by size, then put them back in his pocket,” Buxbaum says.
No doubt that stack of coins is placed precisely on a rounded corner of some shelf amid Green’s engineering books, awards, and Hopkins memorabilia.
Professor Richard Joseph
In 1966, a few months after Professor Charles “Roger” Westgate unpacked his boxes and settled into his new office in the Department of Electrical Engineering, he was joined by a new colleague, Professor Richard Joseph. “We had adjacent offices when we were first in the department and we’d talk briefly every day about our work at the university and our families,” says Westgate. “We’ve been friends ever since.”
In addition to being an outstanding scholar and bringing considerable visibility to the Whiting School for his work—especially for his research in solitons and other propagating wave studies—Joseph was known for his sense of humor. “What I liked most about him was his practical, ‘both feet on the ground’ perspective,” says Westgate. “As I moved through a variety of administrative posts as associate dean, department chair, and other positions, I often sought out Richard’s opinion. He was a reliable and invaluable source of good advice—with a generous topping of good humor.”
Joseph, who was named the Jacob Suter Jammer Professor in 1982 and who was also awarded the Distinguished Young Scientist Award from the Maryland Academy of Sciences in 1970, retired last year.
“Richard’s students knew he had high expectations for them and they rose to the occasion. He was also a popular choice among doctoral students and the faculty advisors as a reader of dissertations. He was always thorough and gave rapid feedback,” says Westgate.
Westgate looks back fondly on his colleague and friend. Although it was more than four decades ago, it is not difficult for Westgate to picture Joseph and himself in 1966, two professors launching their illustrious careers, leaning on the doorframes of each other’s offices, talking and sharing, sparking ideas and having a good laugh.
Professor Charles O’Melia
“ ‘I don’t know much about this, but here’s what I do know…’ That’s what Professor O’Melia would often say, but it was always a signal that you better listen carefully because he knew a lot and had great insight,” says John Tobiason, PhD ’88, today professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “Charlie is humble and fundamentally shy, but he is an incredibly important intellectual leader in his field.”
In 1978, under O’Melia, Tobiason completed his master’s degree in environmental engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After working for a few years in consulting engineering, he decided to go for his PhD so that he could teach at the university level. By then, O’Melia had moved to Hopkins.
“The entire reason I went to Hopkins to pursue my PhD was because Charlie was there. I didn’t apply anywhere else,” says Tobiason. O’Melia—the Abel Wolman Professor of Environmental Engineering and member of the National Academy of Engineering—started at the Whiting School’s Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering in 1980. He retired last year.
“Charlie and his wife, Mary, opened their home to me from the start,” says Tobiason. “In fact, in the early ’80s, when visiting Hopkins before coming to do my PhD, my family and I were at his house and my son, who was 1 at the time, took his first steps on their rug.”
Tobiason also remembers his years at Hopkins with O’Melia as exciting and intellectually stimulating. “Charlie is a brilliant and kind man. And a great mentor,” he says. “I was part of a fantastic group of engineering students, too, many of whom—myself included— went into teaching. We worked really hard— for ourselves and for Charlie.”
And their collaboration extended beyond engineering. “We had a long tradition of playing basketball,” says Tobiason. No matter where we were, we were always learning from him.”
Professor Jack Rugh
What Ed Wysocki ’72, PhD ’77, remembers vividly about being an advisee of Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Jack Rugh was a tiny office he and his classmates coveted.
“Whoever was the next of his grad students under his advisement got the office,” says Wysocki. “It wasn’t much bigger than a closet, but it was right across the hall from Professor Rugh’s office. In it, you’d have a desk, a chair, and a filing cabinet.” Although it afforded barely enough room to remove your overcoat, it gave Rugh’s grad students, like Wysocki, the space—and lack of distraction—necessary to do their writing, analyzing, and thinking. And when the pressure was too overwhelming, they could meander across the hall and throw some questions or ideas out to the professor, or better yet, get him to chat about sailing.
“Professor Rugh was really into sailing. He had this old wooden sailboat, which I think he sold to two students when I was still an undergrad,” says Wysocki, now employed by Lockheed Martin. “Those students later sold that boat to some other students. It got handed down and inherited within the department.” Rugh’s sailboat, it seems, was like his knowledge and passion for engineering—it was passed on with robust enthusiasm.
Rugh—named the Edward J. Schaefer Professor in 1991—who retired recently, was a member of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department for almost 40 years.
“I remember when I first saw Professor Rugh,” says Wysocki. “I was a sophomore and taking a general systems class. He walked in, this energetic, blond guy, and I thought to myself that he looked way too young to be a professor.” But Wysocki soon learned that Rugh’s seeming youthfulness had its advantages. “He was a good guy. Easy to talk to. He probably influenced me in more ways than I can think to remember.”