John Quinn: Advisor, Mentor, and Friend

Much of John Quinn's interest and curiosity centered on surfaces and interfacial phenomena. My thesis on interfacial resistance to mass transfer at liquid/liquid interfaces was based on a most unlikely experiment that somehow John knew had a chance of working. This work inspired much of my career. For example, early in my career I made membranes as thin as 10nm, not much more than two surfaces. Later I helped find a catalytic needle in a haystack that saved a business based on a reaction at a solid surface.