George Morrison, professor emeritus of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University and an international authority on trace-element analysis and materials characterization, died June 11, 2004. He was 82.
Drafted into the Army after graduating from Brooklyn College in 1942, Morrison was assigned to a Princeton University laboratory to work on the chemical purification of uranium for the Manhattan Project. He then earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Princeton in 1948. From 1951 to 1961, he headed GTE Laboratories’ inorganic and analytic chemistry division.
Joining the Cornell faculty in 1961, Morrison became the director of its Materials Science Center Analytical Facility, where he pioneered his research in trace analysis. Later in his research, he moved toward biomedicine, which led to new concepts in the cell biology of calcium and isotopically labeled therapeutic anti-cancer agents. He became emeritus in 1992.
Editor of the journal Analytical Chemistry from 1980 to 1990, he also wrote or co-wrote more than 400 publications. Among his many honors the most prized was his 1971 American Chemical Society Award in Analytical Chemistry for the most complete analysis of the Apollo lunar samples.
At the time of his death, he was survived by Annie, his wife of 51 years; three children; and five grandchildren.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.