DR. MIGUEL CHAPIRO JUNGER

JUNGER, Dr. Miguel Chapiro 89, died after a long illness at home with his family on April 4. He was born in Dresden, Germany in 1923 but lived in Madrid until the civil war and in Paris until the start of World War Two. His father, Jose Chapiro, was a Russian-born journalist who covered culture and arts, and his mother, Adrienne Junger, was from a prominent Salzburg family. The family moved to the United States during the war, where Miguel received his BS in engineering at MIT and then went on to study physics and acoustical engineering at Harvard, where he received his PHD. He is considered one of the founding fathers of a field called Structural Acoustics, which deals with the interaction of fluid media and vibrating elastic structures. He went on to co-found Cambridge Acoustical Associates, a well-known consulting firm that did groundbreaking work for the US Navy and the NASA space program, among others. One of the highlights of his career was developing a fuel monitoring system for a weightless environment on NASA's Atlas missiles in 1960-61. With CAA colleague Klaus Kleinschmidt, Miguel also invented a sound-absorbing, load-bearing masonry block that could be mass-produced and that has been used in many industrial sites and public works projects around the world. In 1972 he co-authored, with David Feit, the first textbook in his field, Sound, Structure and their Interaction, which remains in use today. In 1960 he married Ellen Sinclair of Canton, Ohio and had two children, Carlotta and Sebastian. Ellen lives in Arlington, Carlotta Luke lives in England with her husband Chris Luke and three children, Dylan, Giacomo and Roxanna. Sebastian lives in New York City with his wife, Daniela. Miguel spoke five languages fluently and supported his family with little more than a pencil and a pad of paper. He spent many years in Truro, Massachusetts, sailing in Cape Cod Bay and entertaining friends with his deep knowledge of history and science. To leave a condolence visit www.keefefuneralhome.com