Hilliard, John E.

Dr. John E. Hilliard was born on May 14, 1926 in London, England. He received his B.E. in Metallurgy in 1947 from Liverpool University with first class honors. Three years later, in 1950, he received his Ph.D. in Metallurgy from the same institution. Along with John Cahn, Hilliard developed the Cahn-Hilliard equation, which explained the phenomenon known as phase separation. In 1962 Hilliard joined the faculty of Northwestern University. His research focused on thermodynamic and kinetic processes, quantitative characterization of structure, spinodal decomposition, and compositionally modulated films.

After completing his doctorate, Hilliard accepted a position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Research Associate, a position he held until 1956. In that year he left Massachusetts for Schenectady, New York, where he was a Metallurgist at the General Electric Research Laboratory until 1962. Concurrently, he accepted a position as an Adjunct Professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1957, instructing a one semester graduate course every other year. While at G.E, Hilliard found that he could change the properties of steel through a process of heat-treatment under ultra-high pressure. His stereology research resulted in the first quantitative, three-dimensional picture of sampled materials' structures. This, in turn, led him to invent an instrument, the structure-analyzing machine (SAM). While at General Electric he became life long friends with John Cahn. Together in 1961 they developed a “simple generic equation” to explain the phenomenon known as phase separation. The Cahn-Hilliard equation has become “a pillar of materials science and engineering.” In 1962, Hilliard's impressive accomplishments caught the eye of the Technological Institute at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where he was appointed Professor of Materials Science in 1962. He was named Walter P. Murphy Professor of Materials Science in 1971.

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