Neurath, Peter W. (Peter Wolfgang), 1923-1977

Peter W. Neurath was born August 19, 1923 in Vienna, Austria. He left Austria at age 15 during the Nazi occupation. He spent a year in Scotland and England after the Friend's Service Committee arranged transportation out of the country for a number of orphans. In 1940, he moved to Canada. He received a B.A. in Engineering Physics (1946) and an M.A. in Physics (1947) from the University of Toronto. Thereupon, he became a Westinghouse Fellow at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburg, where he received his D.Sc. in Physics in 1950. Neurath then worked as scientist in the Transformer Laboratories and in the Materials Research Department at General Electric. During his time at GE, Neurath served as Adjunct Professor in the Physics Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1952-1954. In 1962, he left GE and joined AVCO Research and Development Division as Senior Consulting Scientist. He worked at AVCO as a scientist and biophysicist until 1968. During this time, Neurath was also a special student in Biology and Physics at Harvard University. In addition, Neurath began to do research with Tufts University-New England Medical Center in 1966. He became Assistant Professor in the department of Therapeutic Radiology and Director of the Physics Division in 1969. He was appointed Professor of Therapeutic Radiology at the School of Medicine, Tufts University, in 1972, a position he held until his death in 1977. Neurath was also named Adjunct Professor to the Department of Engineering Design at Tufts University in 1972. During his time at Tufts, Neurath co-founded and participated in the Program in Quantitative Biology in the School of Medicine. Neurath's research focused primarily on the use of physics in medicine, the interaction of electromagnets and radiation in tissue, computer application to medicine, and pattern recognition. He is particularly noted for his work using computers to measure and classify human blood cells and his work on chromosome analysis and its computerization. Neurath was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, the American Physical Society, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Research Society of America.

Physicist (solid state physics).