A Tribute to Professor James Lauer

Excerpt

It was with great sadness that we learned of Professor James Lauer’s passing on 16th November 2008. James Lauer was born in Vienna in 1920 and completed his high school studies in Vienna. In 1938, he and his family emigrated to the United States. After completing his college studies, he started work at Sun Oil Company, which decided to send him to the University of Pennsylvania to study for his Ph.D. in Physics, which he completed in a record-breaking 2.5 years. In 1977, when Sun Oil changed ownership, he moved to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to begin an academic career where he rapidly became one of their most productive researchers and most stimulating teachers. During this period, he wrote over 150 papers and filed more than 30 patents. He performed pioneering work in areas such as sulfur removal, the measurement of pressure-dependent lubricant viscosities, the study of the role of carbon as a tribological interface, and the development of spectroscopic methods for understanding lubricant decomposition. …