September 21-22, 2000
ITEM 108-2002-R0900 Authorization
to Confer the Title of Professor Emeritus of Physics upon V. Hugo Schmidt;
Montana State University-Bozeman
THAT: Upon
the occasion of the retirement of V. Hugo Schmidt from the faculty of Montana
State University, the Board of Regents wishes to express its appreciation for
his service to the University, the Montana University System, and the people of
the State of Montana.
EXPLANATION: Hugo Schmidt began his
appointment as Associate Professor of Physics at Montana State University in
1964. He received his doctoral degree
from the University of Washington in 1960 and a B.S. in Engineering from
Washington State University. Prior to
joining the M.S.U. faculty, he held the position of Assistant Professor of
Physics at Valparaiso University for three years. He received his first
research grant from the National Science Foundation in 1961, while still at
Valparaiso.
Dr. Schmidt is
a recognized leader in ferroelectric materials, liquid crystals, and piezoelectric
materials, and serves on the editorial board of the journal Ferroelectrics. He is a Fellow of the American Physical
Society, has received a Fulbright Fellowship for study and research in
Yugoslavia, and is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and
Electronic Engineers. Dr. Schmidt has
also received numerous awards at Montana State University for excellence in
teaching and research. Among these
awards are the Wiley Award (1981), Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award (1979), and
the M.S.U./Chamber of Commerce Award for Excellence (1983 and 1999). Dr. Schmidt has produced about a dozen Ph.D.
graduates, and has been a major force in interdisciplinary materials science
projects at Montana State University.
In particular, his studies of "active" piezoelectric materials
have involved faculty from the College of Engineering, and both undergraduate
and graduate students from Physics and Engineering. For three consecutive years, undergraduate students working in
Dr. Schmidt's laboratory have flown aboard a KC-135 cargo plane above the Gulf
of Mexico to conduct reduced-gravity experiments, with the support of a NASA
grant.
Breadth of
interest and versatility have marked Dr. Schmidt's career at Montana State
University. A true internationalist, he
has participated often in overseas conferences, organized international
conferences at Montana State University, and has had many foreign visitors in
his laboratory for extended research visits, including scientists from eastern
Europe and the former Soviet Union.
Also a dedicated environmentalist, Dr. Schmidt developed a generator
that relies on wind energy, and set up an NSF-funded summer workshop for
undergraduate students that focused on the physics of energy. For years, Dr. Schmidt served as the campus
coordinator for Montana's DOE EPSCoR program.
He has also directed research in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), a process
that has been used to convert coal gas into electricity.
Finally, Dr.
Schmidt's service contributions have been exemplary. He served for many years as chair of several important committees
in Physics, devoted considerable energy to recruiting graduate students for our
program, and has organized innumerable lab tours for visiting officials,
prospective students, and the public.
In recognition of his outstanding service, the Physics Department
established an annual service award for the most outstanding faculty colleague,
and named Dr. Schmidt as the first recipient.
For
these and other contributions, the Board of Regents of Higher Education is
pleased to confer upon V. Hugo Schmidt the rank of Professor Emeritus of
Physics at Montana State University and wishes him well for many pleasant years
in the future.