Ray G. Stevens

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has received word of the death April 26, 2001, of former staff member Raymond G. Stevens of Falmouth. He was 77.

Raymond Stevens was born February 25, 1923, in Orange, New Jersey, and graduated from Palmyra High School in Palmyra, New Jersey. He attended Central College in Fayette, Missouri, for several years, and completed his undergraduate degree in physics at the State University of Iowa (now Iowa State University) in 1949. His undergraduate studies were interrupted by service in World War II, during which he served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific theater, attaining the rank of lieutenant, junior grade. Stevens re-enlisted in the Navy during the Korean War and served as a shore patrol leader in the Mediterranean theater.

Stevens worked briefly at the David Taylor Model Basin as a physicist from 1952 to 1954. His connection to the Institution came in 1955, when he was awarded a summer student fellowship. Columbus Iselin, Director of WHOI at the time, suggested Stevens obtain a Ph.D. before rejoining the Institution. Stevens took the advice and pursued studies toward his doctorate in oceanography and meteorology at New York University (NYU), where he was named an assistant oceanographer in 1955.

He was appointed a Research Associate at WHOI in July 1959 and later served as Assistant Scientist on the Resident Scientific Staff. He completed his Ph.D. at NYU in 1965; his dissertation on the regularity of sea surface spectra. He left WHOI in 1966 to join the staff at the Bedford Institute in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, where he continued his research on his sea surface observations. He left Bedford in 1972 to form his marine consulting firm, based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Ray Stevens retired in 1977 and returned to Falmouth.

Raymond Stevens is survived by four children, two grandchildren, a sister, and his former wife, Alta Mae Stevens of Falmouth.

A memorial service was held May 1, 2001, in Falmouth.