Mechanical Engineering Professor Emeritus Glen Everett Myers passed away peacefully on Dec. 2, 2019, at UW Hospital at the age of 85.
Glen E. Myers
Myers graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1956, and he received his master’s degree and PhD from Stanford University in 1957 and 1962 respectively. After a bi-coastal childhood in California and New York, he settled in Madison once he began working at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1962.
Although Myers had industrial experience with North American Aviation, Convair, Douglas Aircraft, and at DuPont’s Savannah River Plant, his passion was teaching the next generation of engineers. He was a longtime member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the American Society for Engineering Education. He received a number of department, college and campus-wide teaching awards during his 40-year career at UW-Madison. Due to his lengthy service coordinating departmental scholarships, his family has established one in his name to support future mechanical engineering students at UW-Madison. To contribute to the Professor Glen E. Myers Thermodynamics Scholarship, go to this website.
Myers’ thermodynamics notes for undergraduates were published in 1989 as a textbook, Engineering Thermodynamics. His graduate text, Analytical Methods in Conduction Heat Transfer, evolved from notes written to help off-campus graduate students who could not attend regular classes. This book, published in 1971, was the first heat-transfer text to present the finite-element analysis of conduction problems. After his retirement in 2002, Myers still regularly went into his office to work on his solution manuals. He self-published new editions of both of his textbooks as a project to keep his mind active.
He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Susan, and their children, Timothy A. Myers of Moorhead, Minnesota, Christine D. Myers of Monmouth, Illinois, and grandson Ethan C. Myers also of Moorhead. He was preceded in death by his young son, Gregory, his parents, and his sister Patricia Nyerges. Read his obituary here.