June 7, 2004

Elegy presented at the McCormick School Faculty Meeting on June 7, 2004 by Professor J.S. Dranoff

I have asked for a few minutes at today's meeting to remember our former colleague Richard S.H. Mah, who died at home in Glenview on May 30. A native of Shanghai, China, Dick Mah obtained his university education in England, receiving his BSc from the University of Birmingham and his PhD from Imperial College in London, all in Chemical Engineering. Following a two-year post-doctoral appointment at the University of Minnesota, he joined industry and spent five years with Union Carbide Corporation and five years with the Exxon Math and Systems Company. In 1972, Dick joined Northwestern and spent the balance of his professional career as a member of the Chemical Engineering faculty. In 1995, faced with the advancing effects of Parkinson's disease, he decided to retire from active faculty life and was named Emeritus Professor.

During his professional lifetime, Dick Mah was a tireless campaigner for the incorporation of digital computation into chemical engineering practice and education. He was active and held leadership positions in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, particularly within the Computing and Systems Technology (CAST) division, and was a founding member and later President of CACHE, a nonprofit corporation dedicated to furthering the use of Computer Aids for Chemical Engineering. As a member of our faculty, he was instrumental from the very beginning in the adoption of computing methods in our undergraduate curriculum, and he guided the development of our departmental computing facilities from their infancy into their position as a major component in our program. In recognition of his contribution, our departmental computing laboratory was named in his honor at the time of his retirement. Dick also served the broader Northwestern computing community as member and later chair of the University Computing Committee that oversaw the growth and development of the Vogelback Computing Center during its heyday.

Dick Mah was also a mentor to a steady stream of graduate students in Chemical Engineering and later in Industrial Engineering in conjunction with Professor Ajit Tamhane. In fact, Dick and Ajit were jointly awarded the Youden Prize of the American Society for Quality Control in 1986 for some of their research. Dick was also recognized with the AIChE Computing in Chemical Engineering Award in 1981 and the Ernest Thiele Award of the Chicago Section of AIChE in 1990.

I would like to add some personal observations about Dick Mah. I was fortunate to have been department chair at the time Dick was hired. In our earliest dealings at the time, it was quickly apparent to me and others that Dick was going to be an important addition to our faculty. It was also clear that he was a serious and dedicated individual, one who left nothing to chance and no detail, no matter how small, unexplored -to be sure a sometimes exasperating characteristic when one had to deal with and resolve those details, but a true indication of his meticulous and thorough approach to whatever tasks he undertook.

One frequently hears the phrase "a scholar and a gentleman" rather too casually applied to describe someone. However, to my mind, this is a perfect description of Dick Mah. He was, first of all, truly a scholar. He worked in a variety of areas all related by the common theme of application of digital computing techniques. These included sparse matrices, process data reconciliation, batch processing and neural networks. He authored or coauthored more than 70 papers in the technical literature as well as the influential monograph "Chemical Process Structure and Information Flows". As a young man Dick was imbued with a sense of personal integrity and respect for others, characteristics which he brought to his work as a researcher and as a mentor to aspiring young researchers. He was always respectful of the work of those who went before and never disdainful of the work of contemporary scholars and colleagues. Yes, he was a scholar, and a gentlemanly scholar at that.

At the same time, Dick was always kind and considerate in his dealings with others. He would never think of interrupting a colleague who might be holding forth on some topic during a faculty meeting, and would expect no lesser courtesy in return. While he always kept his attention on the matters at hand, he had due regard for the broader picture as well as relevant historical background. His interests were broad and he was broadly cultured. He was an avid tennis player as long as his health permitted and yet he was, I am told, very competitive on the court. True to his heritage, Dick placed great importance on family, his own and those of the people with whom he worked and interacted. I was always touched by his successful efforts to bring his parents to this country after many years of separation and by his ongoing care and concern for them. At the same time, he never failed to show genuine interest in the progress of my own children and family members. Yes, in all his dealings he was a gentleman, and a scholarly gentleman at that.

Indeed, Dick Mah was not only a gentleman; he was truly a gentle man. He was a loyal and respectful colleague, a mentor to students and faculty alike. Those of us who were privileged to know him and to work with him will always remember his steady and purposeful guidance, his eternal good humor and positive outlook, and his many contributions to his profession, his students, and to this department.