Jerome J. Connor ’53, SM ’54, ScD ’59, professor emeritus within the Division of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a member of the MIT college since 1959, died on March 31. He was 91 years outdated.
Over a outstanding profession spanning almost six a long time on the Institute, Connor was a prolific scholar and extremely revered mentor to a number of generations of scholars, a lot of whom now maintain notable positions in academia and business all over the world. His earliest analysis contributed to the pioneering numerical strategies broadly used at the moment in structural engineering, such because the finite aspect technique, and was additionally an early pioneer of the boundary aspect technique. As well as, Connor was the lead proponent of the technical self-discipline known as motion-based design, which is predicated on limiting displacements towards earthquake results by the use of structural management. His management function within the software of numerical strategies to structural engineering led to vital advances within the numerical simulation of structural and materials conduct.
“He was well-known for his mental management, distinctive dedication to the division, and extraordinary mentoring of scholars, college, and employees,” says Oral Buyukozturk, the George Macomber Professor in Development Administration, who first met Connor when he was an adjunct affiliate professor at Brown College and was invited to lecture at MIT.
Connor led the division in new instructing and analysis instructions, advocating the significance of supplies analysis and of design training within the civil engineering curriculum. For over 20 years, Connor led the high-performance buildings monitor within the Grasp of Engineering (MEng) program as college advisor. Along with classroom instructing, he helped MEng college students suppose outdoors of the field of their design of skyscrapers and bridges. He typically accompanied college students on weeklong nationwide and worldwide visits to distinguished building websites throughout MIT’s Unbiased Actions Interval. Along with his spouse Barbara and their household, he usually entertained college students at their summer season house on Cape Cod. His dedication and improvement of this system contributed to its success and recognition at peer establishments as probably the greatest skilled MEng packages within the nation — eagerly sought out by college students in structural engineering.
“Connor was actually dedicated to our college students and he was passionate concerning the discipline of structural design. He launched a lot of pedagogical improvements that we nonetheless use at the moment, similar to semester-long design tasks in addition to on-site visits to revolutionary, signature tasks along with their design engineers,” says John Ochsendorf, professor of structure and civil and environmental engineering, who taught with Connor for 10 years and presently leads the structural mechanics and design monitor of the MEng program.
Adoring mentor and visionary
Connor was a beloved mentor, and from 2007 to 2014 organized and managed MIT undergraduates’ participation within the Nationwide Metal Bridge competitors. Buyukozturk recollects how “he was all the time developing with new and revolutionary ideas for the competitors; a number of occasions his workforce was chosen as prime within the nation and yr after yr his college students have been positioned within the prime three.”
MIT professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering Eduardo Kausel, who was a graduate pupil of Connor’s after which later a colleague, remembers him fondly as an unbelievable trainer and colleague.
“Jerry was a superb trainer and I loved taking his superior computational mechanics class. He was sensible in computational mechanics and excelled in every part he did,” says Kausel. “As a colleague, he was all the time variety and had a mild demeanor; I by no means noticed him getting offended or voicing harsh phrases. He additionally had this unbelievable capability to mentor college students who would go on not solely to change into very profitable as excellent professionals, but additionally very rich,” Kausel says.
Kausel additionally remembers Connor’s uncanny capability to look into the longer term and know the place the following massive development occurred within the discipline. Connor was one of many first researchers to work on the boundary aspect technique in structural engineering. The technique is efficient in understanding how fluid interacts with buildings to make sure its stability, security, and effectivity. Connor additionally experimented with synthetic intelligence nicely earlier than it turned fashionable and performed a major function in main a workforce of MIT researchers within the improvement of the STRUDL pc code, which turned a extremely influential software program package deal for structural evaluation and design.
Along with structural mechanics, he pursued computational fluid mechanics, serving to develop early finite aspect evaluation in each the time and frequency domains. His fashions had functions to offshore engineering, together with tidal circulation, and the conduct and design of marine buildings for resiliency in withstanding excessive occasions, together with these associated to local weather change.
Buyukozturk credit the way in which the division has developed into what it’s at the moment due to Connor’s course and imaginative and prescient. “Priorities for analysis change over time, however Jerry set forth a primary roadmap for prioritizing analysis in computational mechanics, engineering design, and the event of sustainable supplies that lower throughout your entire division in a wider scope,” he says.
Influential wide-ranging profession
Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, on Might 19, 1932, Connor attended Boston Faculty Excessive College and acquired his bachelor’s, grasp’s, and PhD levels in civil engineering from MIT. Earlier than he returned to MIT to change into a college member, he went to work on the Military Supplies Lab in Watertown, designing missile methods in the course of the Vietnam Warfare. Whereas on sabbatical in 1983, he served because the dean of the Division of Engineering at Northeastern College and the director of the MIT Sea Grant Program.
Over the span of his profession, Connor’s analysis in structural mechanics attracted the curiosity of the worldwide neighborhood. He spoke at conferences all over the world and consulted on many engineering tasks, together with the Hancock Tower glass disaster, the Twin Towers in New York, and the Parthenon in Greece, amongst many others. His papers have been cited and printed among the many prime engineering journals, and he was honored with quite a few awards, together with an honorary doctorate from the College of Thessaloniki in Greece. He authored many books on structural engineering, the boundary aspect technique, motion-based design, and computational fluid mechanics. His books have been utilized in doctoral packages at universities all over the world.
Connor led a wealthy and adventurous life outdoors of his tutorial one. Generally known as “Jerry” to his associates and colleagues, Connor traveled to greater than 25 completely different nations all over the world along with his spouse, Barbara, however was particularly keen on the Provence in southern France. A few of his memorable adventures included taking the household by Volkswagen bus all through Europe in the course of the vacation durations and, throughout a sabbatical from MIT in 1970, crusing to England on the Queen Elizabeth 2 along with his then-young kids.
Connor is survived by his spouse Barbara, and by his six kids: Patricia and her husband Richard, Stephen and his spouse Madeline, Brian and his spouse Michele, Michael and his spouse Christine, Mark and his spouse Kathy, Tracey and her husband Maurice, and 14 grandchildren. Presents in Connor’s reminiscence could be made to Boston Faculty Excessive College.