Cornell University faculty

Hans Albrecht Bethe (German pronunciation: [ˈhans ˈbeːtə] ; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American theoretical physicist who made major contributions to nuclear physics, astrophysics, quantum electrodynamics, and solid-state physics, and who won the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. For most of his career, Bethe was a professor at Cornell University.During World War II, he was head of the Theoretical Division at the secret Los Alamos laboratory that developed the first atomic bombs. There he played a key role in calculating the critical mass of the weapons and developing the theory behind the implosion method used in both the Trinity test and the "Fat Man" weapon dropped on Nagasaki in August 1945.
After the war, Bethe also played an important role in the development of the hydrogen bomb, although he had originally joined the project with the hope of proving it could not be made. Bethe later campaigned with Albert Einstein and the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists against nuclear testing and the nuclear arms race. He helped persuade the Kennedy and Nixon administrations to sign, respectively, the 1963 Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (SALT I).
His scientific research never ceased and he was publishing papers well into his nineties, making him one of the few scientists to have published at least one major paper in his field during every decade of his career, which in Bethe's case spanned nearly seventy years. Freeman Dyson, once his doctoral student, called him the "supreme problem-solver of the 20th century".

Alison Stewart Lurie (September 3, 1926 – December 3, 2020) was an American novelist and academic. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her 1984 novel Foreign Affairs. Although better known as a novelist, she wrote many non-fiction books and articles, particularly on children's literature and the semiotics of dress.

Allen Edward Hatcher (born October 23, 1944) is an American topologist.

Thomas Joseph Cade (January 10, 1928 – February 6, 2019) was an American ornithologist most notable for his efforts to conserve the peregrine falcon.

Mervin Edgar Muller (1 June 1928 – 3 December 2018) was an American computer scientist and mathematician. The Box–Muller transform is named after him.

Alexander H. Leighton (July 17, 1908 – August 11, 2007) was a sociologist and psychiatrist of dual citizenship (United States, by birth, and Canada, from 1975). He is best known for his work on the Stirling County (Canada) Study and his contributions to the field of psychiatric epidemiology. Leighton died at the age of 99 at his home in Digby, Nova Scotia.

Ralph Louis Obendorf (born July 11, 1938) is an Emeritus Professor of Crop Physiology at Cornell University who is notable for his research on the health-related components in seeds, particularly fagopyritol A1, which is isosteric to an insulin mediator believed to be deficient in subjects with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM or type II diabetes) and polycystic ovary syndrome, which affects 10% of women of reproductive age.

Robert Allen Plane (1927 – August 6, 2018) was an American retired chemistry professor and college administrator. He served as Provost of Cornell University from 1969 to 1973 and president and chief executive officer of Clarkson University from 1974 until 1985. From 1991 to 1995, he was president of Wells College.Plane graduated from Evansville College (now called University of Evansville) in Indiana in 1948 with a bachelor's degree, and from the University of Chicago in 1951 with a doctorate.

Peter Carruthers (1935 – August 3, 1997) was an American physicist best known for leading the theoretical division of Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1973 until 1980.

George Thomas Shires (November 22, 1925 – October 18, 2007) was an American trauma surgeon. He is known for his research on shock, which initiated the current practice of giving saline to trauma and surgical patients. He operated on John Connally and Lee Harvey Oswald after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.