M. Grant Gross Jr. ’54

Grant died Dec. 17, 2017. A graduate of Amarillo (Texas) High School, at Princeton he majored in geology, joined Quadrangle Club, and was active in Orange Key and the Student Christian Association. He was president of the Debate Panel and vice president of Whig-Clio.

Grant went on to have a distinguished career in oceanography after service in the Army, a Fulbright scholarship in Holland to study marine geology, and a Ph.D. in marine geology at the California Institute of Technology.

He began to focus on oceanography while teaching a new course on it at the University of Washington, where he became associate professor. Next were major appointments at the Smithsonian Institution, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, the Chesapeake Bay Institute at Johns Hopkins, and the division of ocean sciences at the National Science Foundation, from which he retired in 1994.

Grant was recognized for his expertise in marine geochemistry, sedimentary processes in coastal waters, and waste disposal from urban areas. A colleague characterized him as “quiet, egalitarian, fair, and good at getting a consensus, a steady hand at the helm, and instrumental in advancing ocean science in the U.S.”

He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth; children Jeffrey, Alison Gross Gilbert, and Anne Gross Hamel ’86 and her husband, Warren Hamel ’80; 10 grandchildren including Luke ’16 and Jacob ’18; two great-grandchildren; and a sister.