Joseph Albert Biesenberger *63

Joseph A. Biesenberger, professor of chemical engineering at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., died Jan. 5, 1998, after a long battle with cancer. He was 63. He was also president emeritus of the Polymer Processing Institute.

Joseph earned his BS at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. At Princeton he earned an MS in chemical engineering in 1959 and a doctorate in chemical engineering in 1963. He did postdoctoral studies in Milan with Dr. Natta, a Nobel laureate. Joseph then returned to the U.S. and joined the faculty of Stevens Institute. He was chairman of the chemical engineering department from 1971-78.

In 1982 he was one of the two founders of the Polymer Processing Institute, a joint creation of Stevens and the New Jersey Institute of Technology. This group served as an independent, nonprofit industrial consulting corporation with extensive laboratory facilities on both campuses.

Joseph was an outstanding educator, an accomplished research scientist, and a pioneer in the application of basic chemical engineering principles to large-scale industrial plastics processing. His consuming avocation was sailing, usually under canvas.

His widow, Erna, and his sons, Michael and Jeffrey, survive him.

The Graduate Alumni