Remembering Lloyd Bauer

Lloyd Bauer, who served as a professor in the the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University from 1961-1998, passed away on March 27, 2024. In addition to teaching both undergraduate and graduate courses and conducting research, Bauer was also invited to consult and teach at technical institutes and universities in Japan, Germany, Switzerland, France and the former Soviet Union. In 1974, he established an exchange program for CMU and Swiss students at l’École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He was awarded an honorary doctor's degree, Docteur es sciences, from EPFL in 1984.

“Lloyd was a creative experimentalist who pioneered elegant techniques to study grain boundary migration,” said professor Greg Rohrer of his former colleague. “The experiment described in one of his early publications on the polygonization of rock salt is still repeated by every MSE sophomore as a lab exercise and, in that way, his legacy lives on in the department.”

Professor David Laughlin recalls Bauer as “a quiet man with a subtle sense of humor,” as well as a valued resource as he began his academic career. 

“I always considered his advice on experimental methods to be helpful,” Laughlin notes. “When I was a young faculty member he invited me to join the NSF-based Center for the Joining of Materials, which was helpful in the early stages of my career.”

Bauer earned his undergraduate degree in Metallurgical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he also played varsity hockey for Rensselaer for four years, including as a member of the NCAA Division I Championship team in 1954. He later received his Master’s and Doctorate degrees from Yale University. Throughout his career, his work resulted in about 150 books and technical articles.