John W. (Jack) Patterson was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on March 14, 1936. After graduation from high school, he attended Baldwin-Wallace College until he was drafted into military service in 1955. He served in Alaska with the 2nd Infantry Division until 1957. Dr. Patterson received a combined Bachelors and Masters degree (1962) in mining engineering and a Ph.D. (1966) in metallurgical engineering from The Ohio State University. Dr. Patterson joined the faculty at Iowa State University as Assistant Professor (1966-1971) of materials science and engineering. He was promoted to Associate Professor (1971-1976) and Professor (1976-1995). Dr. Patterson was a visiting scientist (1978) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. He retired from Iowa State University in 1995. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at Iowa State. Dr. Patterson's early research interests were in electronic transport properties of solid electrolytes at elevated temperatures. During the second half of his career his research focus shifted towards the application of statistics to industrial manufacturing and processing. Dr. Patterson is perhaps most widely known for his criticism of creationism and supernatural phenomena. His debate with David Weltha, then an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Environment at Iowa State University, received wide local coverage and even generated some national headlines. Weltha promoted and gave lectures on a variety of topics such as astrology, hypnosis, life after death, and other unexplained phenomena, but it was a seminar that he taught at ISU on reincarnation that elicited the most vocal criticism from Dr. Patterson. John Patterson married Shirley Ann Finkel on February 13, 1960. They have two sons, John and Daniel. The Pattersons reside in Arizona.
