Click photos for larger view

Top photo: Zora and Thomas Milne at Danforth Chapel on their wedding day, April 14, 1954.

Lower photo: Pictured, from left, are Mike Esstman, Julie Milne Esstman, Janie Milne Snider, Jack Snider, Tom Milne, Ben Hamm, Zora Milne, Chuck Milne and Beverly Milne.

 5/29/08

Chemistry scholarship established for women doctoral students

LAWRENCE — On his 80th birthday, University of Kansas alumnus Thomas Milne and his family established a $30,000 endowed scholarship.

The Thomas A. Milne Endowed Chemistry Scholarship will provide scholarship support to KU women who are studying for doctoral degrees in chemistry. Preference will be given to women who plan careers in teaching or research.

“There’s a need for women chemists,” Milne said. “Although the number of women with bachelor’s degrees in chemistry is keeping up with men or even surpassing men, the number of women with Ph.D.s in chemistry who are researchers or who have faculty appointments is still quite a ways behind.”

Joseph Heppert, chair of KU’s Department of Chemistry, described the new scholarship as an honor for the department. “The fact that this scholarship focuses on promoting the careers of female doctoral students is both timely and entirely appropriate,” Heppert said. “In chemistry, we are seeing increasing fractions of our incoming graduate classes populated by extremely talented female students. Resources of this type make a real and very important difference in forwarding the careers of our department's doctoral candidates.”

Milne’s daughter, Julie Milne Esstman, BS Social Welfare 1979, said her father had previously mentioned he would like to establish a scholarship at KU. “His 80th birthday was the perfect time to do that,” Esstman said. “This reflects our father’s commitment to the sciences, to chemistry and to his lifetime of work, as well as his love for KU.”

Milne, who lives in Evergreen, Colo., with his wife, Zora, earned two degrees at KU, a BA in chemistry in 1950 and a doctoral degree in chemistry in 1955. He devoted much of his career to the study of renewable energy. In the 1970s, Milne was selected to lead Midwest Research Institute’s Thermochemical and Electrochemical Research Branch at the new Solar Energy Research Institute, later renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, Colo.

There, Milne led the effort to develop new, and improve old, methods of biomass conversion. This is a process that transforms plant matter such as trees, grasses, agricultural crop residue and other materials into solid, liquid or gas fuels to produce electric power, heat and motor fuels.

“Renewable energy will help ease global warming,” Milne said. “It will be one of the leading sources for the world’s energy as supplies of oil and coal and natural gas start running out in this century, and they will.” Milne retired in 1996, and continues to volunteer as chemist emeritus at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Milne became interested in chemistry as a teenager in Iola, Kan., when his parents gave him a chemistry set. At KU, he was further inspired by the late chemistry professor Paul Gilles.

Milne’s wife, Zora, graduated from KU in 1973 with a master’s degree in education. The Milne’s other children, who also helped to establish the scholarship fund, include Charles Milne and Janie Milne Snider, BS Business Administration, 1977.
KU Endowment is the independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fundraising and fund-management organization for KU. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment is the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.

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