Roger S. Porter made outstanding contributions in the field of polymer science and engineering as a creative research scientist, educator, administrator, editor, and consultant to the plastics industry.

Born in 1928 in Windom, Minnesota, he received his B.S. in chemistry (1950) from the University of California-Los Angeles and his PhD. in chemistry (1956) from the University of Washington (Seattle). Porter's subsequent research covered both the academic and industrial sectors. He was Senior Research Associate at Chevron for 10 years and then Associate Professor and Professor at the University of Massachusetts for 25 years.

Porter authored and co-authored more than 400 articles and two books, and co-edited five volumes, six chapters, and 15 reviews. He has several patents in the fields of analysis, characterization, calorimetry, and rheology of polymers and his work on the fundamentals of polyethylene fibers, now commercialized, earned him several national and international awards.

As an educator, he directed research activities of more than 25 graduate students who received PhD's. In addition to his teaching at the University of Massachusetts, he held five visiting professorships and two adjunct teaching assignments at universities in the United States and overseas.

As an administrator at the University of Massachusetts, Porter significantly advanced the profession of polymer science. He was the first director of what has become one of the world's largest educational unit dedicated to Polymer Science and Engineering. He also initiated and co-directed the National Science Foundation Materials Research Laboratory, the only such laboratory devoted to polymers.

As editor of Polymer Engineering and Science, he raised that journal to world-class stature. Porter is a member of the Society of Plastics Engineers, the American Chemical Society and the Society of Rheology, and is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society and the North American Thermal Analysis Society. He was inducted into the Plastics Hall of Fame in 1991.

See: "In memoriam: Julian F. Johnson and Roger S. Porter," Polymer Engineering & Science, 41:2, (February 2001), 131-134.