In Memoriam

Rossman Giese, Jr., Professor Emeritus, was born to Edna Lloyd Giese and Rossman Frederick Giese, Sr. on January 7,1936 as the only son of an only son in the Bronx that was, at that time, ritzy upper-class. New York University and the Hall of Fame (a line of large busts of famous Americans like Alexander Graham Bell, Louis Agassiz, and Ralph Waldo Emerson situated along a cliff overlooking the Hudson River) were there.  Also, a part of his neighborhood was "Judges Row," a street leading to Fordham Road from the University on which were a series of mansions, also overlooking the Hudson, where judges and other wealthy people lived. 

Although his parents were not rich (his dad was a vestryman and managed properties owned by their Episcopalian Church and his mom a nurse) they provided their son with advantages, such as having him began his education at the McBurney School (grades 1 – 12). Ross believed, that the best thing his parents did was to send him to the McBurney School for boys and young men (a few notable alumni, besides Dr. Giese, are Henry Winkler, Robert De Niro,  Ted Koppel, and J.D. Salinger).  Mr. Giannone, Alum 1958, told the New York Times: ''It was an excellent, excellent school, you had to work to get by. You couldn't fake your way through. I practically slept my way through college. I didn't have to do any studying; I was so well prepared here.'' Located at 15 West 63rd Street, Manhattan, getting to school, for Dr. Giese, meant taking the IRT 2 train from the Bronx to 96th Street and then either transferring to the 1RT 1 or walking the 33 blocks (1.5 miles) to school.  Dr. Giese reveled in this – when he decided to walk partway home his route took him up to 77th Street and CPW (Central Park West) where on the north side is the American Museum of Natural History and the on the south side, the New York Historical Society.  Other days, he walked across to the park on the east side and to "museum row" that included the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of the City of New York, and others. From the east side, he would have been able to take the 4, 5, or 6 train back to the Bronx.  He often arrived home from school after seven P.M. but no one ever seemed to mind.   When Dr. Giese took the IRT 4 train, he sometimes got off at the 161 Street Station (Yankee Stadium), which is an elevated station from where you can see a good deal of the baseball field during games. Columbia University is at the 116th Street Station on the IRT 1 line directly uptown from the McBurney School and the American Museum of Natural History. Geologically speaking, the next uptown station is 125th Street; the train goes from below ground at 116th Street, above ground at 125th Street, then below ground again at the 137th Street Station (City College of New York).  The reason for this is that there is a geological fault line at 125th Street and an underground station couldn't be constructed (geographic and geologic details from Ronald Voelkel, Alum 1989).

In 1951, Ross graduated from the McBurney School and the next year started his graduate studies at Columbia: BA -1956 Columbia College; MA 1959 Columbia University; and Ph. D. 1961. His doctoral thesis work on the crystal structure of a cobalt mineral earned him the appointment of Curator of Columbia’s mineralogy museum, while he also served as a Research Associate for the Atomic Energy Commission at Columbia University.

Right after he finished his school commitments, with his new bride, Nona (nee Koerfer), Dr. Giese moved to Western New York in 1961 to accept a position with Carborundum Co. Research and Development Division as a Senior Research Associate working at the center on Buffalo Ave, Niagara Falls, New York.

During this period, Carborundum Research and Development Division had an Atomic Energy Commission research contract for more than $1 million per year (nearly $8.8 million today) for the development of zirconium, hafnium and boron minerals and materials for domestic nuclear power facilities and U.S. and British Naval Nuclear programs.  This milestone marked Carborundum’s first diversification beyond traditional refractory materials.  Dr. Giese’s work, in this effort was to assist in defining the crystallographic properties of these materials and to engineer improvements in their material structure, composition and methods of manufacturing, so as to improve their performance for commercial applications.  As a research scientist, Dr. Giese was a leader in the engineering of, or the modification of, the structure of the materials of interest. His work at Carborundum led to the development of numerous new refractory compositions and carbon-based materials that are still in use today.

Dr. Giese’s understanding of the crystal structure of minerals and the various methods of measuring their properties was key in aiding the development of Carborundum’s novel high-temperature x-ray furnace at Carborundum, Tem-Pres site in State College, Pennsylvania. This high-temperature X-ray system was used by numerous material scientists to measure the structure and behavior of minerals at high-temperatures.  For example, by interpreting the results of high-temperature X-ray diffraction measurements up to 1,000 deg C, Dr. Giese defined the crystal structure and formation of perthites in alkali feldspars^.

Dr. Giese consistently exhibited characteristics of a multi-faced innovator who was able to integrate knowledge found in numerous areas of material science to achieve a rational solution to applied and theoretical problems.  As a consultant, this ability helped numerous industries and organizations.

 In 2005, Robert Naum, GM of an optical coating corporation, requested Dr. Giese to assist in understanding the underlying origin and contributing factors of optical defects appearing on the glass surfaces of thousands of reflector lamps.  Dr. Giese’s in-depth understanding of the structure of minerals and other optical materials, along with his understanding of the chemistry involved in the interactions of such materials, made him a uniquely excellent and obvious choice to help solve the problem.  Dr. Giese outlined and initiated a series of novel analyses, that in combination, were innovative and unique within the glass and lighting industry. His explanation of the materials’ crystal structure and the free energy parameters of the interfacial interactions between optically thin minerals and amorphous glass reflectors allowed him to define and separate the cause and subsequently explain the formulation of the optical defects. His findings made it possible for domestic and International European glass companies to improve their process and eliminate similar optical defects without compromising the lighting performance.  (from Alum Robert Naum MA 1992, President and Chief Executive Officer Applied Resources, Inc. collaborated with Dr. Giese on numerous projects, including: Marcelles Shale Oil, Materials for High Temperature Fuel Cells and SiC Optical Sensors & Diode.)

Knowing his heart was in pure, not applied, research, Dr. Giese realized that the corporate setting was not for him and in 1966 accepted the position of senior cancer research scientist at the Center for Crystallographic Research at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute under Dr. David Harker.  Dr. Harker solved the first protein structure in the United States at Roswell Park and won the Gregori Aminoff prize, one notch below a Nobel. It wasn’t all research though, Dr. Giese told many stories about the times he and Harker, in Harker’s home, would practice pistol shooting in the basement.

Not well known, is that Western New York historically has been recognized as a crystallography center with the American Crystallographic Association (2,200 members in over 60 countries) being based in Buffalo.  Dr. Philip Coppens, a world-renowned chemist crystallographer, became one of Dr. Giese’s close UB colleagues based on their common interest in X-ray crystallography.

In that same year, Dr. Giese found his academic home and began his 50 years of service in the Department of Geology, College of Arts and Sciences, at the State University of New York at Buffalo starting as an Assistant Professor. At that time, the Geology Department was housed in Crosby Hall, on Main Street Campus with Dr. Reginald H. Pegrum, the Geology Department's founder, serving as Department Chair.

Dr. Pegrum, hired in 1927, was the only professor in the Department until Dr. Edward J. Buehler was hired in 1939.  Until then, Dr. Pegrum developed and taught all the geology courses and began building the Department’s collection of specimens and maps.  Dr. King, in 1963, became the third faculty member. (Also, in that year, Martin M. Meyerson started his tenure as President of SUNY at Buffalo which lasted until 1970.)

In 1969, Dr. Giese attained Associate Professorship and the Department moved out of Crosby Hall and into the Bell Facility on 120 Race Street.  Jim Ellis (Alum 1982) remembers visiting Dr. Calkin in the Geology Department in the Bell Aircraft Company building at 2050 Elmwood Avenue (where now there is a McDonalds and Home Depot store).  He remembers that the Bell Plant was a really big, mostly empty, abandoned assembly plant.   Offices were lined up like cubicles along the side of a wall - open to the ceiling very high above. During that time, Dr. Giese served as the Acting Chair of the Department (1971 – 1972) and as the Chair (1972 – 1973).

The Department’s second move in 1975, was to leave the Bell Plant for the Ridge Lea Campus located on the east side of northern stretch of North Bailey.  At this time, Dr. Giese took a sabbatical leave to spend a year in France working with Dr. J. F. Alcover and others at the Chercheur Associe/CNRS - Organisation Cristalline Imparfaite, Orléans, France (1975 -1976).  There, he was introduced to a newly developed technique to determine the short-range order of specific atoms in minerals, a determination that heretofore was not possible. Subsequently, the National Science Foundation awarded, Dr. Giese with a grant to build a similar X-ray diffraction laboratory at SUNY/Buffalo.

In 1979, Dr. Giese was awarded full Professorship.  Those were the days; many felt that the time at Ridge Lea Campus was the best period for the Geology Department.  Ridge Lea buildings were all single story and each academic department had its own building. Because the buildings were long and narrow most rooms off of the central corridor had windows - that could be opened.  On each end of the long were doors that also could be kept open, weather permitting.  Outside these doors there were picnic tables. Collegiality was high – with much collaboration and a lot of social.  The Department, students, and faculty all hosted get-togethers of various kinds.  In Ridge Lea, Dr. Giese’s office had a window and was at the end of the building next to the doors, so he could easily take a few minutes outside to unwind from bending over his computer, a position in which he spent most of his time doing his calculations.

In 1980, Dr, Giese developed permafrost modeling studies to work with Chairman Langway and Dr. Calkin to participate in the development of the Center for Cold Regions Engineering, Science and Technology (CREST).

          Dr. Giese usually bicycled to Ridge Lea from his home in Snyder.  One day, however, he walked into the Department carrying his bicycle on left shoulder, set it down and said “Please take me to the Emergency Room.”  Still a mile or so from campus, his bike hit a hole in the road and came to quick stop, but Dr. Giese kept going over the handle bars and landed on his right shoulder. His clavicle bone was protruding out his back.  Eventually, his shoulder healed but he never enjoyed biking again.

In 1983, his standing in the area of clays and clay minerals, resulted in his hosting and organizing a very successful 20^th Annual meeting of the Clay Minerals Society in Buffalo, with much assistance from UB Geology faculty, staff and several others from Western New York who were considered leaders in fields relating to the study of clays, such as local soil science expert Don Owens, then the owner of Earth Dimensions.

During these years, the mineral origin of life was attracting much attention.  One of the most serious proponents of this theory was A. G. Cairns-Smith.  Early on, it had been suggested that clays had sites where concentration and catalysis of organic matter could take place. Cairns-Smith went further. He suggested that information might be encoded in clays’ structure.  In other words, clays might be not merely catalysts for life, but were able to replicate, mutate and evolve, in other words they could have been a template for the first life forms. Dr. Giese (in Clay Minerals and the Origin of Life, A.G. Cairns-Smith & H. Hartman, 1986) showed how some clays, those with small ordered domains of substitution might provide particularly stable information stores, the information being held as arrangements of such domains.

Dr. Giese, under the auspices of the National Science Foundation, in 1986, entered into a collaboration with Dr. Alan Plançon of the University of Orléans, Professor Robert Snyder of the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University, and Dr. Victor Drits of the Geological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR to study defects in the crystal structures of the kaolin minerals.  Imperfections in the regular arrangement of atoms in a crystal will produce observable changes in the X-ray diffraction pattern of the material.  These very subtle changes require extremely accurate intensity measurements of the X-rays. This study had never before been done in the United States.

In 1990, Dr. Giese bought a Siemens D 500 X-ray diffractometer, on one of his research grants to enhance his research studies that included looking at the defect structure of phyllosilicates as shown by X-ray powder diffraction, in particular the structure and properties of kaolinite and the stacking disorder in kaolinite intercalates, in addition to synthetically hydrated kaolinites and the ordered and disordered organic intercalates of the synthetically hydrated kaolinite minerals.

1990 was also the beginning of a nearly 30 years collaboration between Dr. Giese and Dr. Carrel van Oss, Microbiology and Chemical Engineering, State University of New York at Buffalo.  Measuring the surface tension properties of solid materials had been possible for many years, but until this collaboration, there was no way to measure the surface tension of powdered materials, such as clay minerals and other fine-grained materials. Surface tensions are measured using contact angles – that is, the angle a drop of a given liquid makes when placed on a solid surface.  Particles of clay minerals are microscopic sized; think of talcum powder.  Any drop placed on such a powder sample would immediately start seeping into the sample. Within the first year of their joint research, a method to do this was developed, and in fact, several methods of preparing powder-like samples for contact angle measurement were developed.  Dr. Giese then, using Dr. van Oss’s newly developed theories of using all forces (London van der Waals and polar forces i.e., electrons donors and electron acceptors) interacting at a surface to determine the surface tension of any material, set about determining the surface tension of clays and other minerals in powdered form giving science a trove of new data sets that made it possible to explain and predict many hitherto unknown surface properties of these materials.  For example, although the words hydrophilic (water loving) and hydrophobic (water avoiding) had been used for many years, along with terms such as, ‘hydration pressure’ that were used to try to explain the short-comings of theories in use at that time, no one had been able to define and quantify exactly what caused these properties in clay minerals.  Now, these terms can be quantified.  A hydrophobic material is one where the interfacial free energy between two particles of a given material, immersed in water, has a negative sign, i.e.,  surfaces of the material, immersed in water, prefer to be in contact with each other rather than forming an interface with water, while a positive sign indicates that the material prefers to form an interface with water rather that with itself and thus is hydrophilic.  

The surface tension determinations made in Dr. Giese’s laboratory using Dr. van Oss’s theories led to many other breakthroughs by these two scientists.  Some of the more exciting are determinations of the adsorption and the rate of adsorption, as well as the conformation, of organic materials, such as proteins, onto clays and other materials, such as the biomaterials used in transplants.  Another possibly exciting area is a renewed interest in origin of life studies, among others.

In 1991, those in the Department who conducted their research without need for a fume hood, along with the staff, started the exodus out of Ridge Lea.  During this period, the Department was temporarily housed in Fronczak Hall, home of the Physics Department.   Geology had been slated to move into a building to be built adjacent to the Natural Sciences Complex, but plans were changed and Mathematics moved into the new building from south campus. So, in July, 1994 those who had stayed at Ridge Lea, because their research required the use of fume hoods, including Dr. Giese and his students, joined their colleagues and moved into the Natural Sciences Complex. The move into the Natural Sciences Complex was, in-part, because the new $45-million Natural Sciences building was well-equipped with fume hoods, as can be seen by the impressive 128 silver ventilation cones on its roof.

Dr. Giese was given a brand-new office and laboratory on the 7^th floor of the Complex.  After another decade, though, Chemistry needed more space, so in the Fall of 2008, another move began to the Cooke-Hochstetter complex starting with Geology staff and instructional spaces, followed by the volcanology and climate groups, and finally the environmental group where they remain to this day.  

Dr. Giese was elected President of the Clay Minerals Society (1994-95) after serving as vice-president the prior year.  As president, he was responsible for the well-being and proper functioning of the organization that has over 1000 members from 49 countries who were from academia, government, agriculture and industry, in name a few of the areas interested how clays contribute to their fields.

One of Dr. Giese’s non-academic geologic achievements was his intervention, in 1999, into saving the restoration of the newly discovered historic Erie Canal terminus (the Commercial Slip).  The Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) wanted to rebury the Slip and build a replica next to it.  Concerned that the arguments against the restoration of the terminus were not based on sound science, Dr. Giese intervened, examined the rocks that lined the Slip, and identified the rock as dolomitic limestone from the Onondaga Limestone Formation. He explained that this rock is 400 million-years old and underlies and supports large parts of Buffalo. More of this rock is visible while driving the Kensington Expressway. Dr. Giese noted that nothing has happened to this rock in the 60 years since the road project ended, and nothing will happen to the rock for many hundreds or thousands more years. Thus, Dr. Giese factually and successfully contradicted the ESDC that said these rocks, if exposed to Buffalo winters, will deteriorate rapidly and would indeed, “blast apart,” thus, saving this historic site that is part of Buffalo's Erie Canal heritage.

The last paper submitted, July 2016, by Dr. Giese was a mineralogical study of some black shales of Western New York.  By examining illite/smectite diagenesis, the degree of metamorphism (Kubler analysis), and total organic carbon (TOC), he determined that the Dunkirk and Hume formations could be interpreted as source rocks; moreover, they could be suitable exploration targets. At that time, he believed in the potential of fracking and that natural gas would help reduce the use of oil and coal.

August 15, 2016 Dr. Giese formally retired from the University at Buffalo.

Dr. Giese’s early interest in the crystal structure of minerals continued, but changed direction. From determining the crystal structure of macroscopic minerals, he became interested in sub-microscopic clay minerals, especially in the position of hydroxyl and hydrogen orientations on the outer and interlayer surfaces and their effect on the surface and interlayer-bonding properties of these minerals. In the 1980s, he looked at the intercalation of organics into clays, especially of the kaolinite family, which led to the study of the static and dynamic structure of water in their interlayer spaces.

He became interested in the surface interactions of clays and other fine particles knowing that surface interactions are fundamentally related to many geological, agricultural, chemical, hazardous waste, biological and industrial processes.  Of special interest at that time was the adsorption/desorption of organic and inorganic substances from mineral surfaces.

Unfortunately, both clay mineralogists and chemists ignored developments that were outside of their immediate fields and as a result, there was little advance in clay colloid research. As late as 1988, the research of colloidal scientists was largely ignored by clay scientists. From Marshal, in 1937, looking at the degree of hydration of clay particles, until the late 1980s there was no consensus regarding the forces that were operative at the surfaces and interlayers surfaces of clay minerals. It was well-known that determining the surface interactions between two entities means determining the surface free energy of the components of interest.  However, the DLVO theory, which was widely used at that time, only took into consideration the electrostatic (EL) and the Lifshitz-van der Waals electrodynamic (LW) to determine values for surface energy components of clay surfaces and clay interlayer surface.  And, although, the presence of forces in colloidal system other than the EL and LW were surmised, they could not be explained, so several studies turned to hydration forces to explain the forces that DLVO theory could not.  

When Dr. Giese looked at the work of Dr. Carrel J. van Oss, Department of Microbiology and Chemical Engineering, State University of New York at Buffalo, and realized that his work could be used in understanding and determining the values of the forces that operate at the surfaces and interlayers surfaces of clay minerals, he invited Dr. van Oss to enter into a collaboration.  Dr. Giese’s application of Dr. van Oss’s theories to study the surface properties of clays was so fruitful that the collaboration lasted nearly until Dr. van Oss died on Feb. 22, 2018 at the age of 94.  In the beginning, it took some convincing to get a microbiologist interested in clays (dirt as he first referred to clays) but the many results of that collaboration led to Dr. van Oss becoming an adjunct professor in UB’s Geology Department in 1995.

One of the results of their work together showed that the forces that could not be determined by turning to DLVO theory and hydration forces, were able to be determined when a third category of interparticle force, which has its origin in the electron donors and electron accepts at the surfaces of particles (polar forces), were taken into consideration. Polar (AB) forces are electron acceptor-electron donor interactions in the Lewis acid-base sense.  In polar and especially in aqueous media, AB energies, whether repulsive or attractive, commonly are as much as 100 times greater than LW and 10 or more times greater than EL energies at close range (10-50Ǻ), and that these are the origin of most of the anomalies of the DLVO theory when used to interpret interfacial interactions in polar media.  Thus, the addition of AB forces to the DLVO theory resulted in the formation of the Extended DLVO theory.  The predictions of the Extended DLVO theory were shown to be in close agreement with experimental results.  In aqueous solutions, the inclusion of AB forces is a drastic correction, which for the first time allowed aqueous interactions to be calculated on a reasonably accurate scale.  It is essential that the surface tension components of clay minerals be determined as these components are of such great importance to an understanding of the chemical properties of these materials.

As is common with all solids, the surface free energy of clay minerals (apart from their electrostatic surface potential) is determined by the apolar Lifshitz-van der Walls component and the polar (electron acceptor/electron donor) component. It was well-known, at the time, that the apolar and the polar surface tension components and parameters of solid surfaces could be determined by contact angle measurements using at least three different liquids, of which two must be polar.  However, the ability to measure the surface tension properties of fine particles using contact angle determinations had eluded scientists until Dr. Giese and colleagues developed several methods for direct measurement of contact angles on various clay and non-clay fine grained material.  The method used in Dr. Giese laboratory, for swelling and thixotropic clays, such as smectites and Hectorite, was to fabricate smooth, relatively impermeable self-supporting films, on which contact angles can be measured directly, by: 1) deposition and drying of an aqueous suspension onto thin plastic films, such as those used for wrapping food stuffs; 2) forming films by suction of an aqueous suspension through a silver membrane or through a Millipore filter, 3) depositing clay-water suspensions on a smooth plastic film, removing the self-supporting clay film and making the measurements on the side of the  clay film that was in contact with the plastic, and 4) by the slow evaporation of an aqueous suspension of the mineral particles on a glass microscope slides.

When the solid of interest is a non-swelling powder, contact angle measurements using the above described methods are not possible. The method for measuring contact angles on materials, such as kaolinite, talc, and pyrophyllite is to rely on capillary rise using a uniform, thin deposit of the clay on, for instance, a microscope slide.  This is referred to as thin layer wicking.

The ability of non-swelling, fine-sized, mono-sized, cubical synthetic hematite (Fe₂O₃) particles to form exceedingly smooth layers of deposited films from which direct contact angle measurements can be made and from which contact angle measurements using the thin layer wicking technique can also be made, furnished the experimental proof that the same contact angles would result from either technique.  Details on the use of these methods and the results obtained thereby can be found in Giese, R. F. and van Oss, C.J. (2020 Colloid and Surface Properties of Clays and Related Minerals, Surfactant Science Series Vol.105, Marcel Dekker, Inc., pp.295.

Applying these methods to clays and other fine-grained inorganic materials led to the discovery of a new array of materials that often have widely differing surface properties, which can be put to a variety of novel uses through the proper utilization of their different adhesive or adsorptive properties.

For example, using these methods to do contact angle measurements on swelling and non-swelling clays, Dr. Giese and colleagues, determined the apolar and polar (acid-base) components and parameters on a variety of clay and clay-like minerals. One of the conclusions is that there exists among these minerals a wide variety of surface properties, varying from almost apolar to very polar. For example, it is now understood why the strongly hydrophobic talc and pyrophyllite, unlike their close chemical and structural relatives the hydrophilic smectites, cannot intercalate water or organic molecules, which had been an apparent anomaly.   Dr. Giese showed that the values of surface free energy provide the first clear explanation for the hydrophobicity of talc and pyrophyllite and equally why the smectites are hydrophilic. Talc and pyrophyllite were found to have very weak Lewis base sites on their (001) surfaces, due to the lack of appreciable unbalanced ionic substitutions i.e., a zero-layer charge. Thus, the non-swelling behavior of talc and pyrophyllite in water is due to the relatively weak interaction between their 001 surfaces and water. The weakness of this interaction, which is the direct result of the small values for both the electron-donors and electron-accepter parameters, inhibits the formation of strong hydrogen bonds between the mineral surfaces and water molecules. The relatively small and approximately equal strengths of their acid and base sites make these minerals nearly apolar, a feature that had not yet been observed in oxide mineral.  Dr. Giese concluded that the hydrophobic or hydrophilic properties of a 2:1 mineral particle are determined by the Lewis base (electron donor) parameter and that generally, electron donor values of greater than about 28 mJ/m² indicate a hydrophilic surface where values smaller than about 28 mJ/m² indicate a hydrophobic surface for materials with a Lifshitz-van der Waals component of about 40 mJ/m².  It is important to note that the switch from hydrophilic to hydrophobic generally occurs in clays having a layer charge between 1 and 0 and where the change in electron donor values vary most with layer charge. This means that in nature, small changes in the ambient geologic conditions (e.g. temperature, pressure, pH, the chemistry of sub-surface pore water) can result in dramatic change in the surface properties of the various 2:1 clay minerals, which must be taken into account when, for example, clay liners for toxic waste storage are being designed.  Later, Dr. Giese and Dr. van Oss were able to determine quantitatively the nature of many surfaces and a measure of the hydrophobicity or hydrophilicity of the surfaces.  A hydrophobic material is one where the interfacial free energy between two particles of a given material, immersed in water, has a negative sign, i.e.,  surfaces of the material, immersed in water, prefer to be in contact with each other rather than forming an interface with water, while a positive sign indicates that the material prefers to form an interface with water rather that with itself and thus is hydrophilic. 

It is important that the free energy of adhesion between minerals or other inorganic materials with a polar liquid, e.g., water or with an apolar liquid, e.g. hexane can now be determined.  Dr. Giese found that the surface properties, of for example, a smectite cation exchanged with a cationic surfactant such as HDTMA resulted in very dramatic changes in the clay’s surface properties. Thus, clay mineral surfaces, including inter-layer surfaces can be found, or modified, to suit a wide variety of properties applicable to a wide variety of properties applicable to a wide array of adsorption requirements.  Perhaps, now the mineral origin of life theories could be revisited, using surface tension measurement techniques and data made available by Dr. Giese and colleagues.

Follow up studies, determining the free energy of adsorption of an organic compound dissolved in a solvent onto the surface of various clay minerals showed that understanding how organic materials interact with the clay or clay-like soil minerals is of paramount importance to the migration, sequestration, re-release, and ultimate removal of toxic compounds from ground water and hazardous waste storage facilities, in addition to the formation of impermeable barriers for containment of toxic or radioactive wastes.  Dr. Giese and Dr. van Oss showed that the free energy of adsorption of an organic compound dissolved in a solvent onto a solid surface can be calculated from the surface tension components of the solid and those of the organic compound and the solvent.  Also determined is that the surface tension of the solvent phase is of paramount importance in determining the adsorption of organic compounds onto mineral surfaces.  This is important because a given toxic organic compound strongly adsorbed on a soil mineral could easily be re-mobilized by a change in the type of fluid flowing through the soil. In nature, the fluid phase is predominantly water, but in restricted areas such as hazardous waste facilities and old dump sites, organic solvents are common.

During their later professional career (1995, 1999), Dr. Giese and Dr. van Oss applied the theory that they developed to understand the interaction between particles or molecules in condense media, especially in aqueous media. For example, on a macroscopic level, proteins such as serum albumin (HSA), dissolved in water, should in theory be sufficiently repelled by clean glass or silica particles not to adsorb them at pH values significantly higher or lower than the PI of HSA of 4.85. Yet at pH < 8, HSA does adsorb to a moderate extent to such hydrophilic surfaces. It can be shown via extended DLVO analysis (which includes Lewis acid-base interactions) that such moieties must be situated on HSA sites with a small radius of curvature. Further, they published a series of articles on the kinetic constants of protein adsorption onto hydrophilic surfaces such as silica particles (1999-2001) and elucidated the mechanisms of the kinetic adsorption and desorption using extended or XDLVO theory. Studies such as these, led to many other discoveries by these two scientists.  Some of the more exciting are determinations of the adsorption and the rate of adsorption, as well as the conformation, of organic materials, such as proteins, onto clays and other materials, such as the biomaterials used in transplants.

Another important study for medicine is the interaction of erythrocytes and freezing ice fronts.  Erythrocytes (i.e., red cells) are by far the most frequently transfused cells, which often are frozen to transfuse them at a later date. Dr. Giese and Dr. van Oss showed theoretically and experimentally that erythrocytes in aqueous suspensions admixed with appropriate concentrations of a cryoprotectant (e.g., glycerol) are engulfed by advancing freezing fronts and thus, do not undergo osmotic stress and remain undamaged.

The determination of suspension stability is also useful for the prediction of movement of volcanic ash deposits. Other uses for such determinations include liquid chromatography, other separation and purification methods, hydrocarbon recovery, various utilizations of zeolites and additives of clays in the paper, for example.

Interaction of fine particles is also of interest in cosmo-chemical processes and in the evolution of early solar system materials.  Interstellar media, which comprises about 10 percent of the galactic mass, is composed of assorted gases plus minute grains of refractory matter, notably silicates.  However, the mechanisms which permit the aggregation of refractory grains are not well understood, particularly during the initial stages of planetary formation when gravitational attraction between individual or flocs, of particles are negligible. (Voelkel, R, and Giese, R.F. (2000) Surface Energy Measurements of Comminuted Silicates: Implication for Cosmochemical Processes, Master’s Thesis not published).

Dr. Giese also was named as a co-inventor on two patents dealing with attaching antimicrobials to clay minerals to produce a pathogen killing material.  This led to a collaborative study with Westwood Pharmaceuticals, published 143 peer reviewed scientific articles and with Dr. Carrel J. van Oss, co-authored the book: Surface Thermodynamic Properties of Clays and Related Minerals.

Many describe Dr. Giese as brilliant, calm, gentle, a true gentleman, generous with his time and a witty sense of humor.  For example:

Dr. Wenju Wu, Principal Scientist at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), conveys: “Dr. Giese was a very nurturing and respectful mentor. Coming from China, I had the great fortune to become his graduate student in the fall of 1991. At that time, his group pioneered a method to determine the wettability of fine mineral particles, i.e., the contact angles of particles with liquids such as water. This information was impossible to obtain by direct approaches. Never one to lose his temper, he patiently taught us fundamentals and basic techniques, and at the end of a week’s hard work, he would take us to the bar [Scotch and Sirloin] to relax. Following my graduation, we formed a close friendship between our families. He loved Chinese food, particularly spicy dumplings. I was always impressed with his calmness, wisdom, and humor.”

Dr. Greg A. Valentine, Faculty, Geology UB relates: “I didn't know him well as I only joined the department in 2008 and our paths didn't intersect much after my initial year or so here, but I do remember his style in faculty meetings, where he would mostly be silent until all the other faculty members had extensively discussed a topic that they didn't know much about.  Then he would say something very concisely that totally settled the matter.  He always sat at the opposite end of the table from the Chair's seat, which I now happily use and announce that I'm sitting in the chair Dr. Giese’s now designated ‘Giese Memorial Chair’ (of course, at the moment we don't physically meet, but when we did...and when we do again).”

Dr. Zhaohui (George) Li, Chair and Professor of Geosciences, Department of Geosciences, University of Wisconsin – Parkside: Dr. Giese is a good mentor; said his former PhD student Zhaohui Li. “He guided me to select an important research topic in the area of mineralogy study, the interactions between clay minerals and emerging contaminants on the surfaces of minerals. To decipher such interactions, the energies associated with the mineral surfaces should be determined first, which was not practical for powered materials until he suggested to use the Washburn equation for surface free energy determination of powdered materials. Dr. Giese’s inspiration intrigued me to devote most of my research on interactions between Earth materials and emerging contaminants for a clean environment for almost 30 years with more than 200 peer-reviewed publications.”

Graduate student Scott Fischer AVP, Senior Environmental Risk Analyst, ENVIRONMENT RISK ANALYSIS | HSBC BANK USA, NA: “Dr. Giese was a great man.  Brilliant, kind, and understanding.  Firm, but always fair. I loved his sense of humor. His impact on my life played a huge role in who I am and where I am today.”

Dr. Pankaj Kulshrestha wrote that: Professor Dr. Rossman Giese was my mentor, advisor, and a great friend. He was a kind and a compassionate human being. In 2003, I started working with Prof. Diana Aga in the department of chemistry at the University at Buffalo, but shortly I was diagnosed with a rare genetic disability.  Professor Aga no longer wanted to work with me as my illness resulted in time consuming medical appointments. In the one year I worked with her, I had published an article in The Analyst as a co-author, and another in Environmental Science and Technology as a first author in collaboration with Dr. Giese, who by this time was familiar with and quite impressed by my work.  Dr. Troy Wood of the Department of Chemistry kindly allowed me complete my Ph.D. if Dr. Giese agreed to direct my research and become my Ph.D. advisor. He agreed. Dr. Giese was non-judgmental, understanding of my situation (my disability did not affect him), and showed kindness which I will never forget. When I did not get any summer stipend in 2005 from the Departments of Geology or Chemistry, Dr. Giese gave me money from his own pocket. He later recommended me for work with the UB’s Vice-President of Research’s office to analyze mineral samples using X-ray diffraction for researchers at University and outside the University. I got this job which helped pay for my living expenses for the rest of my tenure as a Ph.D. candidate. My environmental geochemistry research work with Dr. Giese dealt with looking at the fate and transport of antibiotics in the soils and soil components such as clays and humic matter. We deployed different analytical instruments such as Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Fourier Transform Infrared, Mass Spectrometry, etc. to obtain the results for our research. We published our research articles in high quality peer reviewed journals such as Environmental Science and Technology and Journal of Physical Chemistry A. We also were successful in obtaining several research grants from the Mark Diamond Research Fund, the Clays Minerals Society, etc. He nominated me for several awards including The American Chemical Society Agrochemical Education Award that I received. We presented our work at national and international conferences. After I received my Ph.D. Dr. Giese recommended me for a postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University and for a National Research Council of the National Academies fellowship to work at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a principal investigator on my proposed human toxicology project, which I obtained. After this, I worked briefly with Dr. Giese as a research assistant professor on black shales. Dr. Giese gave me a lot of independence with my research work. He was always there to listen to me and offer advice. I will never forget how good and empowered he made me feel. He was my role model of an ideal advisor and supervisor and taught me through his actions that there is no substitute for kindness and understanding. He told me once that we need to be respectful of one another and treat people as human beings first rather than just the human work force. He was one of a kind humble person who touched every life he came in contact with in different positive ways and who made this world a better place to live in one person at a time. 

Michael Kaldor, M.A. 1969, Professor of Geology/Environmental Science (Retired) Miami Dade College. “I was a graduate student in the Department of Geological Sciences from 1967-1969. I worked under Dr. Cazeau but I did know Dr. Giese, mostly though our weekly “tours” of the local brewery. Yes, things were quite different then and we were an exceptionally rowdy group of graduate students that drove some of the more conservative faculty a little crazy, especially the department chair, Dr. King. However, there was a group of faculty members, Drs. Cazeau, Buehler, Pegrum, and Giese that really did understand our somewhat strange work ethic of coming in late mornings but staying until (usually very) late evenings before we would go out for a few beers. The funny thing is that much to the chagrin of the conservative faculty there was, I believe, an exceptional number of graduates earning their Masters in 1969. An interesting side story is that I ran into Dr. King at a GSA convention in the, I believe, 1990’s. We had a very nice conversation reminiscing about the time I spent at UB. At the end of the conversation he said that while, at the time, he did not necessarily understand our actions at the time but in hindsight he really missed the spirit and fun that we brought to the department.”  Mike Kaldor along with Art Rosenshein, Phyllis Kaplowitz Roettke, and others formed the UB Graduate Geology Society during the 1968/69 academic year. kmkaldor@att.net

Alison Lagowski 1996,  UB Geology Staff and former student: “I have so many fond memories of Ross (in my head I’m saying Dr. Giese!). Especially the calm and relaxed sense he had about him, his kindness, and quick but subtle wit he had when poking fun. The memories span from my Ridge Lea Campus days when I took his clay mineralogy class as an undergrad using that ancient XRD, to my grad student days at NSC and his memorable long striped blue and white pants (I think he made himself), through my staff days in Cooke Hall and his twice weekly visits to my office for a handful of mixed nuts and a short chat before his classes! I long for the days of my disappearing jar of nuts, accompanied with those short visits when he talked about fun things like sailing and Sodus Bay and laughed at my crazy stories about the family.  He is truly missed!”