Lowell Schwartz
After a full life of ninety years, Lowell Melvin Schwartz died peacefully in his sleep in Boylston, MA, on January 5, 2025.
Lowell earned graduate degrees in chemical engineering from Caltech (MSC) and MIT (ScD). After a stint at Esso in New Jersey, he studied as a Research Fellow with D.F. Hornig at Princeton, publishing on optical studies of gas mixtures as well as devising calculations on shock waves on argon. In 1962, during a research year at Christian Michelsen Institute, Bergen, Norway, Lowell provided fundamental work in the measurement and analysis of mixing in fluids. Lowell had taught at Dartmouth College for two years when he was recruited to be a founding member of the Chemistry Department at University of Massachusetts Boston in 1965. He taught there until his retirement in 1996.
Lowell had long been an active musician, playing in local orchestras and an array of chamber music groups over several decades. He and his wife Karlene reveled in outdoor life, enjoying kayaking, canoeing, and hiking, including hikes abroad for hut-to-hut hikes in the Austrian Alps and a snowy July 4th climb of Galdhopiggen, the highest mountain in Norway. Lowell, a black diamond skier, retired from his annual ski run down Mt. Washington’s Tuckerman Ravine when he was 35 years old, and he and Karlene moved on to cross-country skiing. Lowell and Karlene took road trips to national parks to hike as well as to observe the eco-systems and learn geological history of the region.
Lowell is survived by his wife Karlene, Tibetan terrier Zelli, friends and family. He was predeceased by his son Jonathan.