My friendship with Donald Paul Merrifield, SJ developed when were taking MIT quantum mechanics courses. Before classes started, I would tell him about existentialist theologian Paul Tillich’s course I was taking at Harvard U to fulfill my minor requirement He would smile understandingly. We lost contact in 1961, when I left MIT to serve as a Lieutenant at the Redstone Arsenal AL. In 1962, Don completed his PhD in theoretical physics. In 1962 I returned to Massachusetts to work on microwave acoustics at the Air Force Research Lab. I used my research there towards my PhD thesis at Brandeis U. My later research on surface acoustic waves(SAW) resulted in much smaller, lower-cost, signal processing filters used in radar, communications, and in today’s cell phones. This contributed to my promotion to a GS-15 Branch Chief. In 1993, 32 years later, I learned at Fr. Jim Skehan’s Ignatian Retreat at Boston College that Don had been the President of Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA. I was amazed not only that Don remembered me, but that he invited me to have breakfast at his Jesuit residence there. He told me in his same friendly manner that he, after being ordained as a priest and teaching university physics, was selected in 1969 as President during the student unrest of the Viet Nam War, “because no one else wanted the job.” As President, Don increased minority enrollment through scholarships and recruitment drives. Don would have resonated with Pope Francis “Laudato Si, On Care for our Common Home” (2015) had he not died in 2010, age 81.

1. From TWO MIT PHYSICS GRADUATE STUDENTS to:
University PRESIDENT RESEARCH LAB CHIEF
By Paul H. Carr

2. 1959. Paul H. Carr working on his MS Thesis:
“Generation of Microwave Phonons & their Use in
Studying the Spin-Phonon Interaction. “

3. My friendship with
Donald Paul Merrifield, SJ
developed when we were
taking MIT quantum
mechanics courses.
--Before classes started,
I would tell him about
existentialist theologian
Paul Tillich’s course at
Harvard for my minor
requirement. He would
smile understandingly.
Don completed his PhD in
theoretical physics in 1962
Fall 1958
Photo I took of Don in front of
Harvard U Memorial Church.

4. In 1961, we lost contact, when I left MIT to serve as a Lieutenant at the
Redstone Arsenal AL. There I headed the Standards Research
Laboratory, developing new techniques for calibrating accelerometers
& vacuum gauges in the Calibration Center.

5. In 1963, I worked on
microwave acoustics at
the AF Research Lab, MA
towards my PhD thesis at
Brandeis U. -
-My later research on
surface acoustic waves
(SAW) resulted in much
smaller, lower-cost,
signal processing filters
used in radar and in
today’s cell phones.
-This contributed to my
promotion to a
GS-15 Branch Chief.

6. • The gray boxes are lumped constant inductor-capacitor,
contiguous UHF Radio Frequency filters.
• The Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) filters are made with
aluminum thin film interdigital transducers (enlarged on
the right) printed on a single piezoelectric chip.
SAW FILTER
ENLARGEMENT
8 SAW FILTERS
ON A SINGLE
CHIP REPLACING
AN 8 CHANNEL
BANK OF
UHF RF FILTERS.

7. In 1993, 32 years later, I learned that Don had been the
President of Loyola Marymount University, CA
I was amazed that he invited me to have breakfast at his Jesuit residence there.
He told me in his same friendly manner that he, after being ordained as a priest
and teaching university physics, was selected as President in 1969 during the
student unrest of the Viet Nam War, “because no one else wanted the job.”
As President, Don increased minority enrollment through scholarships and
recruitment drives.

8. Presidents
George H W
Bush,
Reverend
Donald
Merrifield,
with Steve
Rhodes
Circa 1990

9. 20
Donald P. Merrifield, S. J., (1928 – 2010)
Former President, Loyola Marymount Univ.
•The mind-body problem is philosophic and
ontological not scientific. There is a spiritual
dimension beyond the physical. If matter were
an abstraction removed from its holistic
spiritual ground and only governed by natural
laws, then we humans would be nothing but
biological machines.
• There is spiritual core totally at home and incarnate in
the brain though not emerging from its structure but
from its being. If this is an attempt to resurrect the old
Thomastic soul, the form of the body, so be it.

10. Don would have
resonated with
Pope Francis’
“On care for our
common home”
(2015) had Don
not died in 2010,
age 81.