Meieran, Gene (1937- )

Eugene Stuart Meieran was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 23, 1937, the son of Rae Linetzky and Elias Meieran, an insurance salesman. He received his B.S. Degree in Metallurgy from Purdue University in 1959, and his MS and ScD in Materials Science (inspired by his interest in natural crystals) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1963. Since then he has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in research. He joined Fairchild Semiconductor Research and Development in 1963, specializing in analysis and characterization of single and polycrystalline semiconductor device materials, using X-ray and electron diffraction technology, and worked on many of the important materials and reliability problems that impacted the emerging semiconductor industry. He invented many novel and new ways of analyzing and evaluating silicon and gallium arsenide single crystals and brought into the industry many of the techniques now used routinely for materials analysis.

Gene joined Intel in 1973 as Manager of Package Development, responsible for developing new packages for the emerging memory and microprocessor products. In 1977, he transferred to the Quality and Reliability Department, responsible for Intel materials technology, the Materials Analysis Laboratories and manufacturing reliability functions. In 1985, he was appointed an Intel Fellow, the second in the company's history. He was named Senior Intel Fellow in 2003, a position he now holds. Part of his job has been to debrief returning astronauts regarding the functioning of onboard computers during missions in space.

Gene has taught courses in X-ray diffraction at the University of California, Berkeley and at Stanford University, and has given seminars and invited talks at numerous domestic and international universities such as MIT, Stanford, Oxford, UC Berkeley, Cambridge, and Purdue. He is the author of over 60 technical papers, and has been awarded three international awards based on his work in semiconductor device technology. He also served as Director of Research for MIT's Leaders for Manufacturing program from 1993 to 2000.

Gene has served as the American judge at the European Union Science Fair, and has been the Intel judge for the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for 12 years. He is on the Board of Advisors for the Materials Engineering Department at Purdue, the Dean's Board of Advisors at the University of New Mexico, and has served in equivalent capacities at Lawrence Berkeley Labs and at the University of California. In 1987, Purdue University elected him as Distinguished Engineering Alumni and in 2001, the Purdue Band named Gene as All American Band Alumni of the Year. In 1998, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, and in 2004 he was awarded an honorary Doctorate Degree from Purdue University. He has served on several National Academy committees and industrial committees and councils.

Gene started collecting minerals in 1949 in Norway, his father's homeland, under the guidance of then head of Paleontology at the Oslo Museum, Dr. Gunnar Henningsmoen. Indeed, Gene's father was born near the famous Kongsberg silver mines, and lived in Norway until he moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1928. A later influence in Gene's personal collecting was his friendship with Ed Rushton (who later did business as Camden Mineral Company) while at Purdue University. Gene and his wife Rosalind ("Roz," a ceramic sculptress) were married in 1962; they have occasionally sold mineral specimens under the name of "E & R Crystals" beginning in 1969, and continuing through 1999. After moving to Phoenix, Arizona in 1988, he developed a friendship with Wayne Thompson, who helped Gene evolve his collecting interests from general species collecting to his present specialization of collecting high-quality gem species and native element crystals. His collection currently numbers about ___ fine display specimens, but also retains many of the interesting minerals he acquired in his early years of collecting.

Gene has personally collected at Kongsberg, Franklin, Crestmore, many locations in Indiana, Ohio and Arizona, and at a number of other world-wide locations in England, Africa and Australia. He was one of the four partners in Bryan Lees' Sweethome mine rhodochrosite project, along with John Lucking and Martin Zinn, and has partnered with Wayne Thompson in other mining ventures in Arizona, Pakistan and Brazil.

He has assembled numerous educational as well as aesthetic cases of mineral specimens for display at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, spear-headed the extraordinary "American Mineral Treasures" exhibits at the 2008 show, and is a co-author of the American Mineral Treasures book. In 1991, 1996 and 2004 he was awarded the Paul Deseutels Trophy for his displays at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show; previously (1991 and 1996) he also won the Walt Lidstrom "Best of Show Specimen" award.

Gene has donated a number of important specimens to the Seaman Mineral Museum at Michigan Tech, the Arizona Mining Museum in Phoenix, the University of New Mexico Museum in Albuquerque, the Harvard Mineral Museum in Cambridge, to the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad, California, and to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington. For his work in mineral preservation and education, he was awarded the prestigious Carnegie Medal in 2004, and in 2005 he was named to the Gemological Institute of America's Wall of Fame.

Gene's proudest accomplishment in the mineral domain is the saving of the two large topaz crystals on display near the Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian Institution, from being cut into X-ray monochromators. As a graduate student at MIT, he interceded with the owners of the crystals the day before they were scheduled to be cut, and as a result, the crystals went on loan to the Smithsonian and were eventually donated to the Museum. A third crystal from the lot was also saved, and now resides in the Harvard Mineral Museum display.

Gene plays the flute and is a frequent world-traveler. He and Roz currently reside in Phoenix, Arizona. His daughter Sharon is doing Emergency Room residency in Cincinnati, soon moving to Portland, OR, , and son Andrew is doing building redevelopment in Los Angeles and is making movies.