Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering Jerry Meldon Dies

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Jerry Meldon, an associate professor of chemical engineering and a Tufts faculty member since 1978, died on Tuesday when he drowned while swimming in a lake in North Carolina. He was 69.Jianmin Qu, dean of the School of Engineering, said Meldon was “a great asset to the university and had a profound impact on the students he taught throughout his 40-year career at Tufts. He will be greatly missed by many students, colleagues, alumni and staff.”
Meldon, who received the Henry and Madeline Fischer Award for engineering teacher of the year in 2010, was remembered by colleagues and former students as a brilliant instructor who knew his subject matter inside and out. Professor Kyongbum Lee, the chair of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, said Meldon was one of the few faculty members who could teach the whole discipline. “He sort of did it all,” he said.
At faculty meetings, Meldon would often advocate for giving students a strong foundation in chemical engineering basics before they could branch off into newer disciplines. Some of those courses, such as thermodynamics or fluid dynamics and heat transfer, were among the most challenging undergraduate courses at the school. But he was also empathetic, Lee said. “He used to go out of his way to give his students chances to do well.”
Beth Frasso, who worked with Meldon for 12 years as a department administrator, said Meldon always made time for students and was interested in their careers. “He would try to help people make contacts—I know that was important to him,” she said. She recalled him as a great storyteller, whether he was sharing tales of colorful colleagues or reminiscing about his days as a post doc in the physiology department at Odense University in Denmark. “Every now and then he would go to the Danish Pastry House and bring us a kringle,” Frasso ...

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