On a beautiful spring day in April of this year, Chemistry alumnus Richard Dehm (MS, '52; PhD, '54) and his daughter Ellen Rye stopped by Noyes Lab for a tour of the department's state-of-the-art X-ray facility.
They especially enjoyed that it housed a display of the George L. Clark history! Dehm loved seeing the historic collection which shows some of the items that were in the lab at the time he worked there. “My father wrote a chapter in Dr. Clark’s book, Applied X-Rays, which is now in the historic display”, said Rye.
Dehm grew up in Cullom, Illinois, a town with a population of 500 people—which also happens to be the home of influential chemist, philanthropist, and fellow Illinois alumnus Arnold Beckman, with whom Dehm’s father played high school football.
Dehm served in the U.S. Navy, then graduated from Illinois Wesleyan in 1950. After receiving his master's and doctorate from the University of Illinois, he was recruited to work for Eastman Kodak in Rochester, New York, where he helped establish the company's electron microscopy lab. He went on to a long, rewarding career with Kodak and retired in 1989 as director of new product development.
The X-ray facility was named the George L. Clark X-Ray Facility and 3M Materials Laboratory in Noyes Lab in 2000. More information can be found here .
Mary Jo Hettinger
July 31, 2017