Cowley, J. M. (John Maxwell), 1923-

John Maxwell Cowley was born on February 18, 1923 in Peterborough, South Australia. He earned an honors degree in Physics (1943) and an MSc (1945) at the University of Adelaide and joined the Chemical Physics Section of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) after graduation. He was granted a leave of absence to study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he completed his PhD in 1949. Upon his return to Australia, Cowley rejoined CSIRO and specialized in the extraction of structural information from single crystal patterns and the analysis of dynamical scattering data. He also earned his DSc from the University of Adelaide in 1957. In 1962, he accepted the position of Chamber of Manufacturers Chair of Physics at the University of Melbourne, where he remained until accepting the Galvin Chair of Physics at Arizona State University in 1970. At ASU, Cowley worked extensively with high-resolution electron microscopy, scanning reflection electron microscopy, and scanning transmission electron microscopy. He later obtained a grant from the National Science Foundation to establish a regional (and later national) Instrumentation Facility for High Resolution Electron Microscopy at ASU. Cowley retired from ASU in 1994 and died in Arizona on May 18, 2004. He was survived by his wife, Robbie, and daughters Jillian and Deborah.

From the guide to the Preliminary Inventory of the John M. Cowley Papers, 1964-2004, (Arizona State University Libraries University Archives)