Norman Dahl; helped India go high-tech
By Gloria Negri, Globe Staff, 1/23/2004

When India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru asked the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for help in starting an institute of technology in 1961, MIT promptly turned to Dr. Norman C. Dahl.

   
A professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, Dr. Dahl had not only the intellectual skills required, but the human skills as well.

Dr. Dahl, who helped bring computer technology to Kanpur, India, died of Alzheimer's disease on Jan. 11 at Fairlawn Nursing Home in Lexington. The 85-year-old was a resident of Cambridge and Block Island, R.I. The success of the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur, with graduates now spanning the world as professors, engineers, computer scientists, and entrepreneurs, remains a tribute, friends said, to Dr. Dahl's diligence and ability to connect with people.

"Norman was a powerful servant of American international policy and practical effort and, in short, a serving citizen of not one but several countries in his time," said Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, the US ambassador to India when Dr. Dahl was there from 1962 to 1964. "Perhaps the most spectacular achievement of the early days of the IIT/Kanpur was its contribution to the computer revolution of India -- now a commonplace," Galbraith said. "Not often, and perhaps not ever, has an economic and technical effort so rewarded both the donor country and the major recipient."

Dr. Dahl's wife, Dorothy (Sweet), said the gift by IBM to IIT/Kanpur in 1963 of a computer was "perhaps the first computer in a teaching institution in the subcontinent."

Four other technology institutes, established by India, Germany, Russia, and Britain, still flourish in India. But according to MIT professor Arvind Mithal, a graduate of IIT/Kanpur, "The American model dominates them all, and Norman was, perhaps, the most important to it."

While other engineering schools existed before the IITs, Mithal said, "the IITs revolutionized engineering education in India. The American model was different from the existing schools because it was not like [learning] a trade but was deeply embedded in science.

"Norman was a brilliant administrator and utterly charming," Mithal said. "He connected with people. His attitude was, `Let's see what works.' "

Under Dr. Dahl's setup, the IIT was run by Indians, instead of Americans.

Rama Dasari, associate director of an MIT laboratory, agreed. "Norman's particular talent was in delegating," he said. "He allowed the best to come out of the Indian administrators while the American professors stayed in the background."

Dr. Dahl, his wife, and their two young children stayed in Kanpur for two years. While there, his wife helped start a school for children of institute workers. The family would return to India in 1968 for three years, when Dr. Dahl was appointed the Ford Foundation's deputy representative on projects dealing with over-population, education, agriculture, and urban planning.

Dr. Dahl was born in Seattle, one of three sons of a Norwegian-born father who once panned for gold in Alaska and a Norwegian-American mother. In his senior year at the University of Washington, Dr. Dahl was the first engineering student and non-fraternity member to be elected president of the student body. He graduated with a degree in civil engineering.

At the start of World War II, Dr. Dahl was at Princeton University with the Passive Protection Against Bombing, a committee of the Office of Scientific Research and Development.

The Dahls were married in 1943, and Mrs. Dahl, also, took a position at Princeton. Later, Dr. Dahl became the only civilian assigned to the staff of General Curtis LeMay, head of the US Air Force Strategic Air Command on Guam, where air attacks on Japan were launched. "Norman was provided with a document giving him the rank of major in the event of his capture," his wife said.

In 1946, the Dahls moved to the Boston area when Dr. Dahl came to do graduate study at MIT. He earned his doctorate of science in mechanical engineering in 1952 and stayed on at MIT to teach. He was appointed professor in the department of mechanical engineering in 1959.

That same year, Dr. Dahl co-edited, with MIT professor Stephen Crandall, the textbook "An Introduction to the Mechanics of Solids," with chapters written by seven MIT professors. The text is still in use today around the world.

The book was five years in the making, said Crandall, now retired. "You can imagine that there might have been disagreement among the authors and it was because of the humanity and good grace of Norman Dahl that he was able to pour oil on rough waters. It was so typical of Norman's approach to a problem to get everyone involved."

Dr. Dahl left MIT in 1968 and worked as a consultant in mechanical engineering on projects that took the Dahls around the world. "If Norman had to make a choice," his wife said, "it was always the adventurous one."

In 1969, the Dahls bought a home on Block Island, where Dr. Dahl not only led a study of the island's water supply and its effect on the island's development but served as a member of its sewer commission. He was also involved in a study of Lyme disease on the island. Besides his wife, Dr. Dahl leaves a son, Christian, of King Ferry, N.Y.; a daughter, Sabra, of Cambridge; and three grandchildren.

A memorial gathering will take place at 5 p.m. Feb. 28 at the MIT Faculty Club. The family plans to bury his ashes in July on Block Island.

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.