J. Stewart Marshall

John Stewart Marshall (18 July 1911 – 20 March 1992) was a Canadian physicist and meteorologist. Researcher for the Canadian government during the Second World war and then professor at McGill University from 1945 until his retirement in 1979, he was renowned for his research in cloud physics and precipitation, but especially for being a pioneer of weather radar.

Biography Early life

Stewart Marshall was born on July 18, 1911, in Welland, Ontario, Canada. He attended Queen's University in Kingston where he earned his bachelor's degree in Physics and Mathematics in 1931, and then a master's degree in 1933 with a dissertation on scattering of electrons by metallic foils. After pausing to cure tuberculosis, he entered Cambridge University on a scholarship to study nuclear physics. Different instruments were used by the group in research on the fundamental properties of precipitation. They were mounted at Dawson College, just south of the university's main campus.

In the mid-1950s, the Stormy Weather Group's contribution included the study of cloud physics, radar precipitation echo properties, early radar application to storm surveys, and precipitation monitoring at wider scale.

Marshal has published many articles. He has served on numerous scientific and educational committees in Canada and the United States. He was a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and served a term on the AMS Board from 1965 to 1967. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1953. In 1982, the Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Advance of Applied Meteorology by the AMS The Hugh Robert Mill Medal of the Royal Meteorological Society