Draft:George W. Pearsall

{{AFC submission|d|bio|u=DukeUniversityMEMs|ns=118|decliner=Paul W|declinets=20250429171025|reason2=ilc|ts=20250414003458}}

{{AFC comment|1=May be notable, but needs further references to establish this. Ideally, these should be significant coverage in reliable independent secondary sources (current referencing - just three sources - all come from Duke, his employing university, so are primary). I suspect there may be publications that can be cited, and perhaps newspaper or journal articles about him. Paul W (talk) 17:10, 29 April 2025 (UTC)}}

{{AFC comment|1=In accordance with Wikipedia's Conflict of interest policy, I disclose that I have a conflict of interest regarding the subject of this article. DukeUniversityMEMs (talk) 00:33, 14 April 2025 (UTC)}}

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{{Infobox person

| name = George W. Pearsall

| image =

| birth_date = 1933

| birth_place = Brentwood, New York, U.S.

| death_date = February 21, 2016 (aged 82)

| alma_mater = Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (BEng), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Doctor of Science)

}}

George William Pearsall (1933 – February 21, 2016) was an American engineer, educator, and researcher in the field of material science and product safety.{{Cite web |title=A Tribute to Dean George W. Pearsall |url=https://mems.duke.edu/about/history/pearsall/ |access-date=2025-04-14 |website=Duke Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science |language=en-US}} He served as a faculty member and twice as Dean of the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University.{{Cite web |date=2016-02-22 |title=Duke Flags Lowered: George Pearsall, former engineering dean and professor, dies at age 82 {{!}} Duke Today |url=https://today.duke.edu/2016/02/pearsall |access-date=2025-04-14 |website=today.duke.edu |language=en}} His work helped shape engineering education and research, particularly in the areas of failure analysis and the integration of technology with the liberal arts.

Early life and education

Pearsall was born in 1933 and raised in Brentwood, New York, on Long Island. He served in the United States Army during the Korean War before pursuing higher education. He earned a Bachelor of Metallurgical Engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. After a period working as a research engineer at Dow Chemical, he went on to complete a Doctor of Science degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1961.

Academic career

After completing his doctorate, Pearsall served on the faculty at MIT for four years.. He joined Duke University shortly thereafter, where he would remain for much of his academic career. Pearsall’s research primarily focused on material failure analysis, especially in relation to product safety and design.

At Duke, he served two terms as Dean of the Pratt School of Engineering and contributed to numerous interdisciplinary initiatives. He played a key role in the establishment of the Triangle Universities Center for Advanced Studies Inc. (TUCASI), which facilitated the development of major research institutions in Research Triangle Park, including the National Humanities Center, the Microelectronics Center of North Carolina, and the North Carolina Biotechnology Center.

Pearsall also helped initiate Duke’s Program in Science, Technology, and Human Values and was the first director of an experimental initiative titled Technology and the Liberal Arts, which sought to integrate engineering education with the humanities.

George W. Pearsall Distinguished Lecture Series

In 2013, the Duke Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science (MEMS) established the George W. Pearsall Distinguished Lecture Series in his honor.{{Cite web |title=Pearsall Distinguished Lecture |url=https://mems.duke.edu/pearsall-lecture/ |access-date=2025-04-14 |website=Duke Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science |language=en-US}} The lecture series brings leading experts in engineering and applied sciences to Duke to share cutting-edge research and interdisciplinary insights, reflecting Pearsall’s own commitment to innovation, safety, and the broader impacts of technology on society. The following is a list of lecturers who have participated in the George W. Pearsall Distinguished Lecture Series:

2025: Yonggang Huang (Northwestern University) – Bioelastic State Recovery for Haptic Sensory Substitution
2024: Joseph DeSimone (Stanford University) – The Delicate Interplay Between Light, Interfaces and Design: The Complex Dance That Allows 3D Printing to Scale to Manufacturing
2023: John A. Rogers (Northwestern University) – 3D Mesostructures and Their Applications in Unusual MEMS Technologies
2022: Graham V. Candler (University of Minnesota) – Boundary Layer Stability Analysis of the BOLT Hypersonic Flight Experiments
2020: Ellen M. Arruda (University of Michigan) – Full-Field Methods for Characterizing the Non-Linear Anisotropic Response of the Anterior Cruciate Ligament of the Knee
2019: Hod Lipson (Columbia University) – The Robot Scientist: Automating Discovery, from Cognitive Robotics to Computational Biology
2018: Michimasa Fujino (Honda Aircraft Company) – Innovation and Inspiration: The HondaJet
2017: Xiang Zhang (University of California, Berkeley) – Soft Meta-Materials: Self-Gauged Assembly, Non-Equilibrium Matters, and 3D Super-Resolution Imaging
2016: Mary C. Boyce (Columbia University) – Mechanics of Soft Composites – The Interplay Between Geometrical Structuring and Large Deformation to Achieve Novel Behavior
2015: Mark Asta (University of California, Berkeley) – Computationally Aided Materials Discovery and Design
2014: Alexander Smits (Princeton University) – Logarithmic Scaling in Wall-Bounded Turbulent Flows
2013: Gang Chen (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) – Nanoengineering for Efficient Heat Transfer and Energy Conversion Materials and Systems

Awards and recognition

In 2001, Pearsall received the Triodyne Safety Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), recognizing his lifetime contributions to the field of safe design.

Death

George W. Pearsall passed away on February 21, 2016, at the age of 82.