Father James B. Macelwane, S. J.,
International Leader in Geophysics Research and Education
Among the many subjects a young James B. Macelwane studied while completing his early studies (1906-1911) at Saint Louis University were ancient and modern languages, literature, history, philosophy and theology. Having entered the Jesuit novitiate in 1903, Macelwane was looking forward to a career teaching Latin and Greek in one of the Jesuit schools. But his superiors advised him to pursue studies in physics, geology and mathematics. This change of plans world turn out to be fortunate for Saint Louis University and for the geophysics discipline.
Father Macelwane received a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1923. Like his colleague Father Alphonse Schwitalla, Macelwane was among those Jesuits to receive the doctorate from one of the most prestigious secular universities in America. In 1925, he returned to Saint Louis University, where he would remain for 31 years until his death in 1956. He established a department of geophysics at Saint Louis University, making it the first department of geophysics in the western hemisphere. He served as dean of the Graduate School from 1927 to 1933, and he also was a member of the University’s board of trustees. At the request of the Jesuit Father General, Father Macelwane served as the chair of the Jesuit Commission on Higher Education established to review the educational work of the Jesuits in the United States.
Probably his most significant accomplishment at Saint Louis University came in 1944 when he established the Institute of Technology (IT) as a separate school within the University. The IT offered a program of studies in engineering as well as the earth and atmospheric sciences. Father Macelwane was the force behind the establishment of both the Jesuit Seismological Association and Seismological Society of America. He served on advisory boards for the National Science Board and the National Science Foundation.
