Roscoe Braham Jr.

1921 - 2017

Roscoe Riley Braham, Jr.

January 3, 1921 – May 28, 2017

Cary

Roscoe Riley Braham, Jr., passed away peacefully on Sunday morning, May 28, 2017 at the age of 96. Roscoe was born on January 3, 1921, in Yates City, IL, the son of the Roscoe R. Braham, Sr., and Edith Bowman Braham. He graduated in 1938 from Central High School in Xenia, OH. He attended Ohio University and after three years earned a B.S. in geology in 1941. After graduation and the attack at Pearl Harbor, he volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Corps where he was first a weather officer and later a bomber pilot during WWII. These experiences led to his conclusion several years later that using aircraft, in addition to ground based instruments, was fundamental to furthering weather research, a novel idea at the time.

In 1943 Roscoe married Mary Ann Moll, his high school sweetheart. He attended graduate school at the University of Chicago and earned an M.S. in 1948 and Ph.D. in 1951, both in cloud physics. While writing his Ph.D. dissertation, he worked briefly at the New Mexico School of Mines in Socorro, NM. He joined the faculty at the University of Chicago when he completed his doctorate. He conducted dozens of major research projects, funded mostly by the National Science Foundation, and taught cloud physics and atmospheric physics to graduate students. Among many other findings, his research projects are most notably credited with discovering cell organization (circulation) in thunderstorms and the coalescence-freezing mechanism of precipitation in clouds. He is author or co-author of numerous research papers, and is co-author of The Thunderstorm, published in 1949, but still considered an important reading in meteorology.

He received many recognitions, including Phi Beta Kappa, the Silver Medal from the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Rossby Research Medal from the American Meteorological Society, the Losey Award from the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, President of the American Meteorological Society, and an honorary doctorate degree from North Carolina State University. He was one of three founding fathers of a multi-university partnership for atmospheric research (UCAR and NCAR), funded by the National Science Foundation.

While teaching at the University of Chicago, Roscoe and Mary Ann lived in Riverside, IL. After retiring in 1991, Roscoe and Mary Ann moved to Cary, NC, where he accepted a position of Scholar in Residence with the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at N. C. State University. He was a member of the Kirk of Kildaire Presbyterian Church in Cary.

His hobbies included camping, wood working, gardening and genealogy. Roscoe is survived by his wife (Mary Ann) of 74 years, three daughters (Ruth Ann Ashton of Elkhart, IN; Nancy Billingslea of Montgomery, AL; and Jean Barwig of Longwood, FL), one son (Richard Braham of Raleigh, NC), eight grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.

Public visitation will be held from 7 pm to 9:00 pm on June 9 at Brown-Wynne Funeral Home at 200 Southeast Maynard Rd., in Cary, NC. A memorial service will be held on June 10 at 2 pm at the Glenaire Retirement Community at 4000 Glenaire Cir., Cary, and on June 17 in Dayton, OH. Burial will be in the family plot at Woodland Cemetery in Xenia, OH. Donations to the Edith Braham Endowment at the N.C. State University Library are welcome.