In Memoriam: Dr. Derek Page

Print this article | Send to Colleague

In his own words, Derek Page "spent a lifetime in research for the pulp and paper industry, mostly at the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada" (Paprican, now part of FPInnovations). He joined the industry in England in 1955, and joined PPRIC as section head in Fiber Physics in 1964. After serving as division director of Materials Science, and then as director of Research for Physical Sciences, he retired from Paprican in 1993. Subsequently, he was appointed Distinguished Professor of Physics at the IPST, a position he held until his second retirement.   

Derek said that "the teams he led produced classical scientific contributions in the fields of fiber structure, effects of beating and refining, strength of wet webs, fiber-fiber bonding, image analysis, printing, paper permanence, and the stress-strain curve and tensile strength of single fibers and of paper. Dr. Page was a strong leader in the paper physics community, as a founding member of the TAPPI Paper Physics Committee, through his service on the program committee of Oxford and Cambridge Fundamental Research Symposia. He also was the founding scientific editor of the Journal of Pulp and Paper Science in 1983 and served as its scientific editor until 2009.  

Dr. Page received many honors for his outstanding contributions. He was elected Fellow in the following organizations: TAPPI, International Academy of Wood Science, Royal Microscopical Society, and Institute of Physics. In 1999, he received the highest honor granted by PAPTAC, the John S. Bates Memorial Gold Medal. In 2003, he was inducted into the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame, and in 2005 he received the TAPPI Gunnar Nicholson Gold Medal Award.

As an undergraduate student at Cambridge, Dr. Page was a member of the "Magic Circle." Later at Parican, he used these skills to perform magic shows for children at Christmas parties. After his second retirement, he also compiled some of his non-technical writing in a book titled The Curious Mind of a would-be Humorist.