Research Interests SOLID STATE PHYSICS: Electronic properties of materials; Luminescence of phosphors and minerals; Infrared and Raman spectroscopy. SOLID STATE CHEMISTRY: Phase equilibria and crystal chemistry; Chalcogenide materials; Organic crystal chemistry. MATERIALS SCIENCE: Materials characterization; Glass science; Crystal growth and ceramic processing. ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT: Nuclear waste problems; Environmental science. GEOLOGICAL SCIENCES: Aqueous geochemistry; Element distribution geochemistry; Geomorphology; Hydrology and hydrogeology. MINERALOGY: Descriptive mineralogy; Mineral physics. |
Education Public Schools of Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania |
Recent Publications White, W.B. (1990) Photoluminescence, candoluminescence, and radical recombination luminescence in minerals. Chap. 6 in Spectroscopic Characterization of Minerals and Their Surfaces, L.M. Coyne, S.W.S. McKeever and D.F. Blake, Eds, Amer. Chem. Soc. Symposium Ser. 415, 118-134. Bliss, M., B.L. Walden, and W.B. White (1990) Measurement of infrared spectra of dense ceramics by specular reflectance spectroscopy. J. Amer. Ceram. Soc. 73:1078-1083. Spear, K.E., A.W. Phelps, and W.B. White (1990) Diamond polytypes and their vibrational spectra. J. Mater. Res. 5:2277-2285. Merzbacher, C.I. and W.B. White (1991) The structure of alkaline earth aluminosilicate glasses as determined by vibrational spectroscopy. J. Non-Cryst. Solids 130:18-34. Chandrasekhar, B.K. and W.B. White (1992) Polarized luminescence spectra of kunzite. Phys. Chem. Minerals 18:433-440. Sasowsky, I.D. and W.B. White (1993) Geochemistry of the Obey River Basin, Northcentral Tennessee: A case of acid mine water in a karst drainage system. J. Hydrol. 146:29-48. Idink, H. and W.B. White (1994) Raman spectroscopic study of order disorder in lead magnesium niobate. J. Appl. Phys. 76:1789-1793. Plesko, E.P. and W.B. White (1994) Vibrational spectra and structural order in the lithium-rare earth sulfides. J. Solid State Chem. 112:295-298. Sasowsky, I.D., W.B. White and V.A. Schmidt (1995) Determination of stream-incision rate in the Appalachian Plateaus by using cave-sediment magnetostratigraphy. Geology 23:415-418. White, W.B. (1997) Thermodynamic equilibria, kinetics, activation barriers, and reaction mechanisms for chemical reactions in karst terrains. Environ. Geol. 30:46-58. White, W.B. (1998) Groundwater flow in karstic aquifers. Chap. 18 in The Handbook of Groundwater Engineering, J.W. Delleur, Ed., CRC Press, Boca Raton, pp. 18.1-18.36. Boldish, S.I. and W.B. White (1998) Optical band gaps of selected sulfide minerals. Amer. Mineral. 83:865-871. Ravichandran, D., S.T. Johnson, S. Erdei, R. Roy and W.B. White (1999) Crystal chemistry and luminescence of Eu+2 activated alkaline earth aluminate phosphors. Displays 19:197-203. White, W.B. (1999) Karst hydrology: Recent developments and open questions. In: Hydrogeology and Engineering Geology of Sinkholes and Karst, B.F. Beck, A.J. Pettit, and J.G. Herring, Eds., A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, pp. 3-21. |
Professional Affiliations Fellow, The American Ceramic Society; Member, The Materials Research Society; Fellow, Mineralogical Society of America; Member, The American Geophysical Union; Member, International Association of Hydrogeologists; Fellow, National Speleological Society, Executive Vice President, 1965-1967; Member, Cave Research Foundation, Chief Scientist, 1962-1973; Member, British Cave Research Association; Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, member AAAS Council, 1965-1972; Member, Sigma Xi. |
Career Research assistant and research associate, Dept. of Research in Chemical Physics, Mellon Institute, Pittsburgh, PA 1954-1958. Graduate assistant, Dept. of Geophysics and Geochemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, 1958-1962. Research associate, l962-1963; assistant professor, 1963-1967; associate professor, 1967-1972; professor, 1972-date. |
Editorial Activities Associate Editor, The American Mineralogist, 1974-1976; Earth Sciences Editor, National Speleological Society Bulletin, 1964-1994; Associate Editor, Materials Research Bulletin, 1979-1994; Associate Editor, Materials Letters, 1983-1989; Associate Editor, Journal of the American Ceramic Society, 1985-1994; Editorial Board, Crystals: Growth, Properties, and Applications, Springer Verlag, 1977-1988. |
Honors and Awards Matthew J. and Anne C. Wilson Award for Outstanding Teaching, 1974 |