The South African and international chemistry community, together with Rhodes University and the Royal Society of South Africa, mourns the passing of RSSAf Fellow and Emeritus Professor Michael (Mike) Brown, in Grahamstown on 31 May 2019 after a long illness.
Mike Brown was born in 1938 in Johannesburg and matriculated from Highlands North Boys' High School. His first degree, a BSc, was awarded by the University of the Witwatersrand. He was appointed to Rhodes University as a junior lecturer in 1962, completing his PhD degree in 1966. The newly graduated Dr Mike Brown completed a short stint as a Research Officer at the SA Chamber of Mines Research Laboratories in Johannesburg before returning to Rhodes University as a Lecturer in Chemistry in 1967. The Department of Chemistry at Rhodes University was to become his academic home for 36 years until his formal retirement in 2003. It was from here that he launched his long and distinguished academic career.
Emeritus Professor Mike Brown was recognised as South Africa’s foremost researcher, and a South African pioneer, in the field of thermal analysis. He was the recipient of the Mettler/North American Thermal Analysis Society International Award for Distinguished Contribution to Thermal Analysis (1996), the Rhodes University Vice-Chancellor's Distinguished Senior Research Award (1998) and the South African Chemical Institute's Gold Medal (2000). He was a Visiting Research Fellow at Queen's University in Belfast (1971), at the Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge (1980) and at ICI Explosives in Scotland (1989). Mike Brown was also the first Rhodes University academic to be awarded an A rating by the South African National Research Foundation. A tribute from one of his former colleagues at Rhodes University, published in a recent scholarly history of the university, recognised Emeritus Professor Mike Brown as one of a small group of Rhodes researchers who decades ago defined and guided the upward research trajectory of both the Department of Chemistry and the university.
In 1998 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, and in 2002 he became the first South African to be elected a Fellow of the North American Thermal Analysis Society (NATAS). Mike Brown shared a close friendship and productive 35-year collaboration with Dr Andrew Galwey, FRSSAf, of Queens University in Belfast. This collaboration, which began in 1971 when Mike Brown spent his first sabbatical at Queens University, ultimately yielded some 30 publications, many coauthored with postgraduate students, with a further eight publications in conference proceedings and two books. To mark this productive collaboration, a special issue of the international chemistry journal Thermochimica Acta was published in their honour in 2002 (Vol. 388, Issue 1–2).
Formal retirement in 2003 proved to be but a milestone and not the end of an academic road at his alma mater. Emeritus Professor Mike Brown, in addition to continuing his thermal analysis research collaborations, remained a highly valued mentor and a distinguished senior colleague at Rhodes University during his retirement years. In 2006 he submitted a compilation of research papers, from his life’s work in thermal analysis, for the award of a DSc degree from Rhodes University, upon which the examiners “unanimously heaped praise”Footnote1.
Further post-retirement recognition from Rhodes University followed in the form of a Distinguished Old Rhodian Award, and for his scholarly and distinguished achievements after his formal retirement he was made a Distinguished Fellow of Rhodes University. The latter award is an honour rarely afforded retired academics at the university. Finally, the International Confederation of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry (ICTAC) fittingly bestowed on him a lifetime honorary membership, in August 2018 in Brasov, Romania, shortly after his 80th birthday, in formal recognition of his contribution to the field of thermal analysis over half a century.
Emeritus Professor Mike Brown is survived by his wife Cindy, daughter Linda, grandson Brandon, son Richard, daughter-in-law Spela, and extended family. He is fondly remembered by his friends and colleagues at Rhodes University and around the world, together with generations of students who passed through his classes and research laboratory, for his wry sense of humour, his grace in difficult circumstances and his deep commitment to scholarly excellence, and, on a personal level, as an inspirational teacher and researcher and a wise, loyal and generous mentor and friend. He is sorely missed.
Notes
1 The reference to this statement is taken from The citation delivered by Professor Pat Terry, Dean of Science, on presenting Emeritus Professor Michael Brown for the degree of Doctor of Science at the Graduation Ceremony for the Faculty of Science on Saturday 8 April 2006