Awards & Scholarships

Augustus B. Kinzel, Vice-President-Research of Union Carbide Corporation, was born in New York City in 1900. He graduated from Columbia University in 1919, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1921, and from the University of Nancy, France, in 1922. He holds the D.Sc. from this University, and honorary degrees of D.Eng. and D.Sc. from New York University and Clarkson College, respectively. Dr. Kinzel became associated with Union Carbide Corporation in 1926 and has been actively engaged in research and allied areas with this Corporation ever since. His contributions and publications cover a wide range of activities in metallurgy, applied mechanics, industrial gases and nucleonics. One of the country's leading research metallurgists, Dr. Kinzel pioneered in ferro-alloys, the deoxidation and alloying of steels, welding and cutting, and pressure vessel design. In the 1930's he fathered many of the then new structural low-alloy steels. Recently, he spearheaded the research and piloting of Union Carbide's new process for making titanium metal. More than forty patents have been issued in his name. He has an extensive background in mathematics and science, in addition to metallurgy, and this has served him well as consultant to various Manhattan Project and Atomic Energy Commission installations, including Los Alamos and Oak Ridge, since their inception. As a member of the initial Manhattan Project Committee for the World Control of Atomic Energy, he helped draft the classified report that was the technological basis for the Lillienthal and Baruch plans. During World War II he also held key posts in the War Production Board, Economic Warfare Branch, Federal Economic Administration, Minerals and Metals Advisory Board, and he was in charge of the Metals Branch of Technical Industrial Intelligence Commission in Europe. Presently he is a member of the Defense Science Board and Past Chairman of the Naval Research Advisory Committee. Dr. Kinzel is co-author of the Engineering Foundation's volumes on Alloys of Iron and Chromium, and is the author of more than sixty technical papers. He has given many of the Honorary Memorial Lectures in metallurgy, including the Howe (AIME), the Campbell (ASM), and the Adams (AWS). He has received the Samuel Wylie Miller Medal, the James Turner Morehead Medal OAA), and many distinguished serviceawards. An accomplished linguist, Dr. Kinzel has also lectured to engineering audiences in many countries abroad. He was elected to membership in AIME in 1926 and his interest and activities in its behalf have been invaluable. He has served as Director from 1946-1948; Vice-President in 1949-1951 and again in 1953-1955; and as President-elect in 1957. His chairmanship of the Engineering Foundation Board, the Advisory Committee of. the Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University, the Welding Research Council, and his membership on the M.I.T. Corporation, as well as his numerous committee posts in the AIME and executive posts in Union Carbide over the years, emphasize his outstanding combination of scientific and administrative ability. The Institute is fortunate indeed to have elected to its highest office a man so endowed. The Kinzels live in New York City but also have homes in the Berkshires and in La Jolla, California. Dr. Kinzel's community activities include a Directorship of the Berkshire Industrial Farm and of the International Benjamin Franklin Society. For relaxation, he designs and builds modern furniture, sails dinghies, and pilots small planes. The Kinzels have a large family, presently including eleven grandchildren.