In Memoriam: Wilbur C. Bigelow

The Microscopy Society of America and the Microbeam Analysis Society sadly announce the passing of University of Michigan Professor Emeritus Wilbur C. Bigelow, the longest-lived member in the history of both societies. Wil passed away in Novi, Michigan, on March 7, 2025, just 11 days shy of his 102nd birthday.

Wil earned his PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Michigan in 1951 under the mentorship of Prof. Lawrence O. Brockway, a founding member of the “Electron Microscope Society of America.” His doctoral research was conducted using the second commercially available RCA electron microscope in the United States. In 1955, he joined the faculty of the Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering, and retired as Professor Emeritus of Materials Engineering in 1993. Wil played a pivotal role early on in both the Microscopy Society of America and as a Charter member of the Microbeam Analysis Society, serving in various leadership positions, including as President of MSA in 1969. For more than 20 years in retirement, he was active as a consultant, designing and fabricating many devices to facilitate electron microscopy efforts in a number of institutions.

Wil's remarkably long career was recognized with a number of honors. In 2018, the Microbeam Analysis Society named him a “Legend Fellow”, and in 2019 he was elected a Fellow of the Microscopy Society of America. At the 2023 Microscopy & Microanalysis meeting in Minneapolis, Wil—at age 100—was celebrated with the first-ever named symposium for a living MSA member: the “Prof. Wilbur C. Bigelow Centenary Symposium on In Situ Heating and Gas-Reaction Studies in Materials Science.” Many students and colleagues were in close touch with him, through his centennial years, and will sorely miss him now that he has gone.

For the full obituary, visit:

https://neptunesociety.com/obituaries/southfield-mi/wilbur-bigelow-12276800