Dartmouth's flag flies at half-mast today, as the College lost Sydney E. Junkins Professor Emeritus Millett Granger Morgan, a Thayer School of Engineering veteran of over 50 years, to a heart attack and stroke.
"I knew him quite well as a person -- and I've always loved him," said Bengt Sonnerup, also a Sydney E. Junkins Professor Emeritus. He said that Morgan was respected and admired by all.
Professor Emeritus Thomas Laaspere, who worked with Morgan on a number of space research and satellite experiments, described him as an exceptional organizer and "a real gentleman."
During a trip to Washington, D.C., to present a proposal to NASA, Morgan expressed a desire to catch up with Laaspere's research paper total.
"I said to him: the papers that carried my name ... you wrote them in part with me, because you laid the groundwork," Laaspere said, adding, "there was no need to catch up."
"He was very, very friendly, not only with faculty but with staff, secretaries and students," Professor Emeritus Victor Surprenant said.
Professor Emeritus Carl Ferdinand Long described Morgan as "instrumental in supporting the work of young people."
A Hanover native, Morgan discovered an intense interest in radio while in his teens. He went on to become a prominent researcher in the field of ionospheric physics, which involves the study of radiation coming from the sun and stars as it interacts with magnetic fields in the earth's atmosphere.
During World War II, Morgan put his graduate studies on hold to work on a pair of projects. He developed radar counter-measures at the California Institute of Technology and x-band radar for destroyer escort vessels at Boston's Submarine Signal Company.
Morgan journeyed to the U.S. Antarctic Station on the Weddell Sea in 1958 as the senior scientific representative on a re-supply mission.
Morgan became a part of the Thayer faculty in1947; he went on to play a substantial role in the creation of graduate research programs. Over the years, Morgan instructed students in such topics as antenna design, magnetoionospheric physics and electromagnetic field theory. He also founded Thayer's Radiophysics Laboratory.
Morgan established a field station near his home in Hanover, from which he conducted ionospheric studies.
"He was a very handy engineer who did things for himself," Sonnerup said, noting that Morgan "continued his research on the ionosphere until the day he died."
While not at work, Morgan busied himself as an enthusiastic outdoorsman and opera fan. He created and coached the Cornell Ski Team, hiked mountains throughout the United States and Europe with his family, and worked at a hut on Mount Lafayette in the White Mountains for a pair of summers in the 1930s.
Morgan met his wife -- Eleanor Walbridge of Enfield -- in 1937. The two had four children; Morgan is also survived by five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
