Meredith C. Gourdine (1929)

Meredith C. Gourdine was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1929. He received a B.S. in Engineering Physics from Cornell University in 1953 and a Ph.D. in Engineering Physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1960. Dr. Gourdine pioneered the research of electrogasdynamics. He was responsible for the engineering technique termed Incineraid for aiding in the removal of smoke from buildings. His work on gas dispersion developed techniques for dispersing fog from airport runways. 

Dr. Gourdine served on the technical staff of the Ramo-Woolridge Corporation from 1957-58. He then became a Senior Research Scientist at the Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1958-60. He became a Lab Director of the Plasmodyne Corporation from 1960-62 and Chief Scientist of the Curtiss-Wright Corporation from 1962 to 1964. Dr. Gourdine established a research laboratory, Gourdine Laboratories, in Livingston, New Jersey, with a staff of over 150. Dr. Gourdine has been issued several patents on gasdynamic products as a result of his work. He received patent #5,548,907 for a method and apparatus for transferring heat, mass, and momentum between a fluid and a surface. Dr. Gourdine served as president of Energy Innovation, Inc. of Houston, Texas.