About

Arthur Thomas Ippen was born on July 28, 1907 in London UK, and passed away on April 5, 1974 in Belmont MA. He graduated from Aachen Technical University as a civil engineer and received from Caltech the MS in 1935 and the PhD degree in 1936. He was from 1938 to 1945 an assistant professor of hydraulics at Lehigh University, and from 1948 professor of hydraulics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MIT. Whereas Ippen worked in the 1930 and 1940s mainly in open channel hydraulics, he turned his attention later to coastal engineering, to saltwater intrusion, and to sedimentation processes. Ippen was also one of the founders of what we currently refer to as environmental hydraulics, which has a number of classic research contributions now. Ippen retired from MIT in 1973. He was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science in Boston, gained Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Toulouse in 1963, of Karlsruhe in 1967 and of Manchester UK in 1968.

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In 1960 Ippen was elected president of IAHR and thus organized the Congresses in Dubrovnik in 1961 and in London in 1963. He was the initiator of the Journal of Hydraulic Research in 1963, a journal that has received international reputation among hydraulic engineers over the years. In addition, he founded a number of national IAHR committees, today’s IAHR Regional Divisions. Finally, Art Ippen had an interest in international technical education and exchange of technical information. His input and wise foresight for matters concerning IAHR was remarkable, therefore. The Ippen Award was established posthumously to honor young hydraulicians of today with a most prestigious award in hydraulic engineering. The Ippen Award is presented biannually during an IAHR Congress along with the Ippen Lecture delivered by the awardee.