Awards & Scholarships

Albert Sauveur, Gordon McKay Professor of Metallography and Metallurgy, emeritus, was born in Louvain, Belgium in 1863, but came to the United States where he graduated from M.I.T., and remained thereafter. He became a professor of Metallurgy here in 1905. He received many honorary degrees including an Sc. D. from Harvard in 1935, on which occasion President Conant said of him; "Long famous as a founder of the science of metallurgy, a Harvard professor of whose achievements we shall be forever proud."

Dr. Sauveur was often consulted by government officials here and in Europe because of his knowledge of iron and steel. During the war he was metallurgist on the American Aviation Commission in France and adviser to the French Ministry of Munitions.

Sauveur was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the American Philosophical Society, of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain, the Iron and Steel Institute of America, of Sigma Xi, and of Tau Beta Pi. He was elected to honorary membership in the American Society for Metals, the Society of Engineers of the Liege School of Mines, the Societe des Ingenieurs Civils de France, and the Societe de l'lndustrie Nationale (France) ; and to corresponding membership in the Societe d'Encouragement pour l'lndustrie Nationale (France).

Besides two books on his experiences in the war, he wrote several books and many articles on metallography and the metallurgy of iron and steel. Outside of his honorary degrees he was awarded the Cresson Gold Medal of the Franklin Institute, the Bessemer Medal of the British Iron and Steel Institute, and the Albert Sauveur Achievement Medal of the American Society for Metals.

Dr. Sauveur died January 26^th, 1939 at the Deaconess Hospital in Boston, after a week's illness. He was 75 years old and was known as the world's greatest authority on the metallurgy of iron and steel, as well as the founder of the modern science of metallurgy.