Robert Leonard Cunningham (1914-1994)

Dr Robert Leonard Cunningham died in Ottawa on July 18, 1994, at the age of 80. He was a metal physicist, who took part in the early development in Canada of the newly formed American Crystallographic Association and the International Union of Crystallography.

Together with Dr W. H. Barnes of the National Research Council he made arrangements for the 4th General Assembly of the IUCr at Montreal in 1957. Dr Cunningham received his PhD in physical chemistry from McGill University in 1940 and joined the Physical Metallurgy Division of the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys in Ottawa, as head of the Metal Physics Section.

In 1961 he became Director of the Mineral Sciences Division of the Department of Mines and Technical Surveys, and retired in 1968.