Cornelius T. Moynihan *66

Cornelius Moynihan, retired professor emeritus of chemistry at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (R.P.I.), died Dec. 22, 2015, after a brief illness. He was 76.

In 1960, he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Santa Clara University. Then he earned a master’s degree in 1962 and a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1966, both also in chemistry. He had begun his academic career in 1964 in the chemistry department at California State University in Los Angeles. In 1969, he joined the materials science and chemistry department at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. In 1981, he became a professor at R.P.I. in the materials science and engineering department.

During his career, Moynihan specialized in amorphous materials, and published approximately 180 scientific papers in this field. In particular, he analyzed a complicated structural relaxation phenomenon of glasses. The most popular equation to describe the relaxation bears his name as “The Narayanaswamy-Moynihan-Tool relaxation formalism.”

Known for his thorough and rigorous teaching of thermodynamics, he continued his teaching as an R.P.I. professor emeritus. He was a fellow of the American Ceramic Society.

Moynihan is survived by two children, four grandchildren, and his partner of 30 years, Maria Resnick.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.