Concise Encyclopedia of Tufts History
Sauer, Anne
Branco, Jessica
Bennett, John
Crowley, Zachary
2000
Lloyd MacGregor Trefethen Award,
The Lloyd MacGregor Trefethen Award is named in honor of Lloyd Trefethen, professor of mechanical engineering, and is presented annually to a mechanical engineering senior who has conducted outstanding undergraduate research. | |
Lloyd MacGregor Trefethen earned a B.S. from the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture, an M.S. from M.I.T. and a Ph. D. from the University of Cambridge. During World War II he was an officer in the merchant marine and the U.S. Navy. He was executive secretary of the National Science Board during the first years of the National Science Foundation (which was founded in 1950). | |
He joined Tufts University in 1958 to chair the Department of Mechanical Engineering until 1966, a position he held again in 1981 and 1982. He introduced graduate research programs in the College of Engineering. For thirty years, he was also a consultant to the General Electric Research Laboratory. He is a fellow of the ASME and AAAS. | |
Professor Trefethen is greatly interested in simple physical experiments. He invented the heat pipe and "twinfoil" sailing. His most prized award was for the world's best film in the physical sciences that year by the 1958 International Scientific Film Festival for the film Surface Tension in Fluid Mechanics. | |
Source: BTU[Arts and Sciences/Engineering]; 100H | |
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