Volume 3, Issue 4 May 2003

2003
2002
2001

1944: Metallurgist Earl Randall Parker joins the UC Berkeley Engineering faculty by David Pescovitz Printer-friendly version Earl Randall Parker was a fellow in the American Physical Society, the American Society for Metals, and the American Institute of Mining, Metal-lurgical and Petroleum Engineers. He also served as president of the American Society for Metals. Courtesy Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory From preventing the cracking of World War II supply boats to developing high-strength ductile steel, the late College of Engineering professor Earl Randall Parker was a magician of metallurgy. The professor emeritus of materials science and mineral engineering landed at UC Berkeley in 1944 after graduating from the Colorado School of Mines and honing his talent during a decade of research at the General Electric Company. The same year Parker joined the Berkeley faculty, he solved a major problem that plagued the World War II Liberty Ships carrying supplies to support the war effort. The ships often broke in half when cracks in the welded steel spread through the hull. Parker identified the weakness in the material and proposed a solution. Parker's career continued to skyrocket through the 1960s, when he and UC Berkeley colleague Victor F. Zackay invented a new superstrong alloy called TRIP (Transformation Induced Plasticity Steels). While the novel steel was too expensive and difficult to machine, Parker's pioneering studies on how nearly invisible defects in a material can dramatically alter its properties enabled the commercial development of high-strength steel still used today. Beyond iron-based alloys, Parker and his students also explored the key properties of other materials, including superconducting ceramics. Further demonstrating his dedication to innovation, Parker was instrumental in lobbying the Department of Energy to create what's now the Materials Science Division at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. In 1980, he was awarded the National Medal of Science for his research efforts. Have a story about Earl Randall Parker that you'd like to share? We want to hear from you... Parker was decidedly a researcher's researcher but he was also an esteemed educator. During his three decades at Berkeley, he mentored more than 100 PhD and MS students and twice chaired the Department of Materials Science. His dedication as an educator was lauded with a Distinguished Teaching Award from the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate and, upon his retirement in 1978, the Berkeley Citation, the University's highest honor. Parker died in May of 1998 at the age of 85. "He was one of the grand old men of metallurgy, particularly steel technology," Robert O. Ritchie, a UC Berkeley professor of materials science who was one of Parker's last postdoctoral students in 1974, said at the time of his adviser's death. "But he had an influence on all aspects of materials science." Obituary: Earl Randall Parker (from the University of California History Digital Archives) Lab Notes is published online by the Public Affairs Office of the UC Berkeley College of Engineering. The Lab Notes mission is to illuminate groundbreaking research underway today at the College of Engineering that will dramatically change our lives tomorrow. Editor, Director of Public Affairs: Teresa Moore Writer, Researcher: David Pescovitz Designer: Robyn Altman Subscribe or send comments to the Engineering Public Affairs Office: lab-notes@coe.berkeley.edu. © 2003 UC Regents. Updated 5/1/03.