Laporte, Otto

Laporte, Otto

(1902–71) physicist; born in Mainz, Germany. He came to the U.S.A. on a postgraduate fellowship to work for the National Bureau of Standards (1924–26), then became a professor at Michigan (1926–71). A pioneer in plasma physics and atomic spectroscopy, he was also a visiting professor in Japan (1928, 1937), and a science attaché with the American Embassy in Tokyo (1960–63).

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.