The Rensselaer community lost a longtime friend May 31 with the passing of Michael Abbott ‘61, professor emeritus of chemical and biological engineering, but his legacy will live on through a lecture series in his name. The Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering launched the Michael M. Abbott Lecture Series May 10 with a talk by Jefferson Tester, the H.P. Meissner Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The lecture was the first in what will be an annual series hosted by the department each spring.

Abbott was an internationally recognized expert in chemical thermodynamics, and he was the co-author of four textbooks, including the best-selling chemical engineering text of all time, Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics, currently in its seventh edition.

But this was hard-won expertise, according to Abbott. “My teaching career has been strongly influenced by my own undergraduate experiences,” Abbott wrote in a personal statement from the late 1990s. “Foremost among these was unusual difficulty with a single subject: thermodynamics. . .  A major personal mission for the past 25 years has been to make my old nemesis — thermodynamics — comprehensible to my students.” 

Those who knew Abbott said he had a passion for teaching. He received many awards in recognition of his work as a teacher and mentor, including the Trustees’ Outstanding Teacher Award and the first Rensselaer Alumni Association Teaching Award in 1994.

“Dr. Abbott was an outstanding teacher who was deeply dedicated to Rensselaer and its students,” said Alan Cramb, dean of the School of Engineering. “He will be remembered by the Rensselaer community as a man of warmth and selflessness, of kindness and good humor, and of wisdom, high standards, and great character.” 

Abbott received his bachelor’s in 1961 and his doctorate in 1965, both from Rensselaer in chemical engineering. After several years working at Exxon Research and Engineering, he returned to Rensselaer in 1969 as a postdoctoral research associate and stayed until his retirement in 2002 as professor emeritus of chemical and biological engineering — although he continued to teach even after officially retiring.

Mary Abbott, his wife of 43 years, retired in February 2006 after more than 20 years with Institute Advancement at Rensselaer. She began her work in the 1980s with Alumni Relations, working as an assistant to then-director Carl Westerdahl. From 1994 until her retirement, she worked as an advancement researcher, establishing a reputation as a tireless professional with a great deal of knowledge about Rensselaer history.

Published June 19, 2006