Robert Hilton Meservey ’43
Robert Hilton Meservey ’43 died June 18, 2013, in Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Bob grew up in Hanover, the son of physics professor Arthur Meservey. At Dartmouth he majored in physics, was captain of the ski team in 1942 (The Boston Gobe called him “Dartmouth’s brilliant sophomore ski sensation”) and a member of Casque & Gauntlet and Phi Beta Kappa. He graduated magna cum laude. During WW II Bob served in the 10th Mountain Division where he was an instructor in skiing, rock climbing and winter survival for soldiers heading for combat duty in the mountains of Italy. He was awarded a Soldier’s Medal and was discharged in 1946, but returned to the laboratory during the Korean War. Bob then turned to architectural photography and magazine work in New York and Newport, Rhode Island. His most publicized photos were those he took at Jackie Bouvier’s coming out party. Then, with a change of direction, Bob earned his Ph.D. in physics from Yale in 1961. After a short time with the MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts, he transferred to the university’s Francis Bitter Magnet Lab in Cambridge. His work was in research and super conductivity, magnetism and low temperature physics. In 2009 Bob and three colleagues received the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Physics Prize—the highest award given by the American Physics Society. Bob retired in 1994, but remained on the MIT staff as a visiting scientist. Bob is survived by his wife, Evelyn, daughters Diane and Sarah and four grandchildren.
