Remembering Sanjay Biswas and Brian Briscoe
Drs. Wilfred T. Tysoe & Nicholas D. Spencer | TLT Cutting Edge February 2014
We look back at the careers and contributions of two pioneers in the tribology community
Sanjay Biswas
Brian Briscoe
WE MOURN THE LOSS OF TWO COLLEAGUES, Sanjay Biswas and Brian Briscoe, who passed away in 2013. Both were ardent supporters of
Tribology Letters and served on the journal’s editorial board, with Brian being the first to sign up before our inaugural issue in 1995. Sanjay Biswas was born in Calcutta, India, graduating in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur. He obtained his master’s degree from the University of Strathclyde, Scotland, in 1969, going on to get his doctorate from the University of Birmingham, England, in 1972. In 1976, he joined the mechanical engineering department at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore, where he served in many capacities, including dean of engineering.
Sanjay’s research ran the gamut from surface forces and fundamental studies of PTFE wear to very practical solutions for the oil and automobile industries. He fearlessly entered many areas of tribology, surface science and even cell biology during his career, often generating strikingly original results, but always with an impeccably strong theoretical underpinning. His scientific legacy is a deeper understanding of many aspects of wear, lubrication and materials behavior, as well as having established a generation of Indian tribologists.
Sanjay was a true visionary, not only in science but also in his social activism and his work for the IISc, where he established a new undergraduate program, a new focus for the institution on bioengineering and tirelessly championed those not typically represented in the Indian higher-education scene. Highly respected in the Indian Government, the Institute and in the tribology community, among his friends he was enormously entertaining with a wicked sense of humor.
Brian Briscoe was born in Yorkshire, England, and obtained his degrees at the University of Hull and the University of Cambridge in the Cavendish Laboratory. In 1970, he took a position as assistant director of Research/Oppenheimer Fellow at Cambridge, working extensively with David Tabor, and in 1978 became a lecturer in interface science. In 1984, he moved to the chemical engineering department at Imperial College as a reader in interface science and was promoted to professor in 1992. He retired in 2009 but stayed at Imperial College as an Emeritus Professor until his passing in June 2013.
Brian carried out seminal work on boundary lubrication and the origins of friction in the late 1970s, research that has recently become of renewed importance with the need for low-friction lubricants. He then spent much of his career carrying out pioneering work on the mechanical, friction and wear properties of polymers, which culminated in the publication of the book,
Polymer Tribology, with Sujeet Sinha in 2009. However, Brian’s research interests were wide ranging, including ceramics, pastes, polymer adsorption, condensation, composite materials and ionic liquids; research that is described in his more than 200 published papers.
Brian was the founding editor of the journal
Tribology International, where he served for 17 years. While Brian will be remembered for his seminal scientific achievements, his students will remember him as a caring supervisor who worked and enjoyed life with them as he would his own friends. His Christmas parties were the most eagerly awaited events of the year.
Both of these individuals were larger than life. Their friendship, wise counsel and invaluable insights will be missed by us, and by the many people whose lives they touched.
Eddy Tysoe is a Distinguished Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Nic Spencer is professor of surface science and technology at the ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Both serve as editors-in-chief of STLE-affiliated Tribology Letters journal.
You can reach them at wtt@uwm.edu and spencer@mat.ethz.ch.