Russell James Donnelly | |
---|---|
Born |
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada | April 16, 1930
Died | June 13, 2015 | (aged 85)
Nationality | Canadian-American |
Alma mater | McMaster University, Yale University |
Spouse | Marian Donnelly |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Physicist |
Institutions | University of Chicago |
Doctoral advisor | C. T. Lane and Lars Onsager |
Russell James Donnelly (born 16 April 1930 in Hamilton, Ontario, died 13 June 2015 in Eugene, Oregon) was a Canadian-American physicist known for his work on classical and quantum fluid dynamics. [1] [2] [3] He connected the fields of low temperature physics and fluid turbulence. [4]
Donnelly graduated from McMaster University with a bachelor's degree in 1951 and a master's degree in 1952. [1] In 1956 he received his doctorate from Yale University, with a thesis entitled "On the hydrodynamics of liquid helium". His doctoral advisers were the noted physicists C. T. Lane and Lars Onsager. [4] His PhD work demonstrated that the oscillations of liquid helium in a U-tube at a low temperature could be described by two-phase liquid theory. [1]
In 1956 he became an instructor and later professor at the James Franck Institute at the University of Chicago, where he worked with S. Chandrasekhar and Dave Fultz. From 1959 - 1963 he was Sloan Fellow. In 1966 he moved to the University of Oregon, [1] where it was possible for both himself and his wife, art historian Marian Donnelly, to hold positions. [4] He eventually served twice as department chair at the University of Oregon. [1] In 1972 he worked at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. He was also a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Birmingham. He was a consultant at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. [4]
During his life he advised 25 PhD students, and mentored many others, including future Nobel prize winner David Lee. [1] He died from pneumonia on 13 June 2015 in Eugene, Oregon. [1] [5]