Patrick K. Gallagher, Ph.D.
Honored with ASTM International Award of Merit

Patrick K. Gallagher, Ph.D., emeritus professor of Ohio State University, has been recognized with a 2004 ASTM Award of Merit from Committee E37 on Thermal Measurements. He was formerly the Dow Professor for Materials Chemistry and Engineering in Ohio State's Departments of Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering and currently is an adjunct professor of chemistry and materials science at Clemson University in Clemson, S.C.

The ASTM Award of Merit, which is accompanied by the title of fellow, is the highest Society award given to an individual member in recognition of distinguished service and outstanding participation in ASTM committee activities.

A resident of Salem, S.C., Gallagher was the first chairman of Committee E37, and he played a critical role in the committee's organization. Gallagher works today on a number of E37 subcommittees and has championed standards based on thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). He has focused on calibration for TGA test methods, which has led to innovative techniques to calibrate temperature. In addition, he has encouraged E37 to harmonize its efforts with those of the International Congress on Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry (ICTAC).

Gallagher is a former president of and a member of the North American Thermal Analysis Society (NATAS), which recognized him with an Outstanding Service Award, and of ICTAC. A NATAS fellow and an honorary member of ICTAC, Gallagher is also a member of the American Chemical Society and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Ceramic Society.

Other awards have been conferred on Gallagher, including the Mettler Award in Thermal Analysis, the Thermal Analysis Instrumentation (TAI)/ICTAC Award, the Kurnakov Medal from the USSR Academy of Science, the Semiconductor International Award for Research, and the Netzsch Award in Thermal Analysis. He has served on a number of editorial boards, and was honored with a commemorative issue of Themochimica Acta. Gallagher has published close to 300 papers in reviewed journals, serves as series editor for the Handbook of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry, and holds five U.S. patents.

In his career, which included academic experience at Ohio State, industrial experience at Bell Telephone - Laboratories and also military experience in the U.S. Marine Corps, Gallagher focused on the synthesis, characterization and reactivity of inorganic materials. He concentrated on methods of synthesis, characterization of materials and processes by thermoanalytical methods, and the rates and mechanisms of the reactivity of solids.

Gallagher earned his B.S. in chemistry, his M.S. in inorganic chemistry, and his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

ASTM Committee E37 on Thermal Measurements is one of more than 130 ASTM technical standards writing committees. Established in 1898, ASTM International is one of the largest standards development and delivery systems in the world. ASTM standards are accepted and used in research and development, product testing, quality systems, and commercial transactions around the globe.