View source for Allan MacLeod Cormack

{{Short description|South African and American physicist}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Allan MacLeod Cormack
| image             = File:34. Tagung 1984 Mediziner; Verabschiedung H.-H. Kunckel, Allen Cormack - W134Nr.123006 - Willy Pragher (cropped).jpg
| image_size        = 
| caption           = 
| birth_date        = February 23, 1924
| birth_place       = [[Johannesburg]], [[Union of South Africa|South Africa]]
| death_date        = {{Death date and age|1998|5|7|1924|2|23}}
| death_place       = [[Winchester, Massachusetts|Winchester]], [[Massachusetts]], [[United States]]
| residence         = 
| ethnicity         = 
| field             = [[Physics]]
| work_institutions = [[Tufts University]]
| education         = [[Rondebosch Boys' High School]]
| alma_mater        = [[University of Cape Town]]<br>[[St John's College, Cambridge]]
| doctoral_advisor  = 
| doctoral_students = 
| known_for         = [[Computed tomography]]
| author_abbrev_bot = 
| author_abbrev_zoo = 
| influences        = 
| influenced        = 
| prizes            = {{no wrap|[[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]] {{small|(1979)}}<br>[[National Medal of Science]] {{small|(1990)}}}}
| footnotes         = 
| signature         = 
}}
'''Allan MacLeod Cormack''' (February 23, 1924 – May 7, 1998) was a South African and American [[physicist]], academic, and Nobel laureate. He was Professor of Physics at [[Tufts University]] and won the 1979 [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]] (along with [[Godfrey Hounsfield]]) for his work on [[X-ray]] [[computed tomography]] (CT), a significant and unusual achievement since Cormack did not hold a doctoral degree in any scientific field.<ref>{{cite web|title=1979: Allan MacLeod Cormack (1924–1998)|url=https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/1979-allan-macleod-cormack-1924-1998|work=[[St John's College, Cambridge]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Oransky|first=Ivan|date=September 2004|title=Sir Godfrey N Hounsfield|journal=The Lancet|language=en|volume=364|issue=9439|pages=1032|doi=10.1016/S0140-6736(04)17049-9|pmid=15455486|s2cid=9630780 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

==Early life and education==
Cormack was born on February 23, 1924, in [[Johannesburg]], South Africa. He attended [[Rondebosch Boys' High School]] in [[Cape Town]], where he was active in the debating and tennis teams.<ref name="to be quoted">{{Nobelprize|name=Allan M. Cormack|accessdate=October 11, 2020}}</ref> He received his B.Sc. in [[physics]] in 1944 from the [[University of Cape Town]] and his M.Sc. in [[crystallography]] in 1945 from the same institution. He was a doctoral student at [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge University]] from 1947 to 1949, and while at Cambridge he met his future wife, Barbara Seavey, an American physics student.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

==Career==
After marrying Barbara, he returned to the University of Cape Town in early 1950 to lecture. Following a sabbatical at [[Harvard]] in 1956–57, the couple agreed to move to the United States, and Cormack became a professor at [[Tufts University]] in the fall of 1957. Cormack became a [[naturalized citizen]] of the United States in 1966. Although he was mainly working on [[particle physics]], Cormack's side interest in x-ray technology led him to develop the theoretical underpinnings of CT scanning. This work was initiated at the University of Cape Town and [[Groote Schuur Hospital]] in early 1956 and continued briefly in mid-1957 after returning from his sabbatical. His results were subsequently published in two papers in the Journal of Applied Physics in 1963 and 1964. These papers generated little interest until [[Godfrey Hounsfield|Hounsfield]] and colleagues built the first CT scanner in 1971 in the UK, taking Cormack's theoretical calculations into a real application.  For their independent efforts, Cormack and Hounsfield shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. It is notable that the two built a very similar type of device without collaboration in different parts of the world.<ref name="to be quoted" /> He was member of the International Academy of Science, Munich. In 1990, he was awarded the [[National Medal of Science]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nsf.gov/od/nms/recip_details.cfm?recip_id=89|title=The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details {{!}} NSF – National Science Foundation|website=www.nsf.gov|language=en|access-date=November 14, 2017}}</ref>

==Death==
Cormack died of cancer in [[Winchester, Massachusetts]], at age 74. He was posthumously awarded the [[Order of Mapungubwe]] on December 10, 2002, for outstanding achievements as a scientist and for co-inventing the CT scanner.{{citation needed|date=February 2024}}

==References==
<references/>

==External links==
{{Portal|Biography}}
*{{wikiquote-inline}}
* {{Nobelprize|name=Allan M. Cormack}}
{{Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Laureates 1976-2000}}
{{1979 Nobel Prize winners}}
{{Order of Mapungubwe|state=collapsed}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cormack, Allan Macleod}}
[[Category:1924 births]]
[[Category:1998 deaths]]
[[Category:Alumni of Rondebosch Boys' High School]]
[[Category:Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge]]
[[Category:American biophysicists]]
[[Category:American Nobel laureates]]
[[Category:Deaths from cancer in Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Harvard University faculty]]
[[Category:National Medal of Science laureates]]
[[Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine]]
[[Category:Scientists from Johannesburg]]
[[Category:People from Winchester, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:South African emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:South African inventors]]
[[Category:South African Nobel laureates]]
[[Category:20th-century South African physicists]]
[[Category:Tufts University faculty]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the University of Cape Town]]
[[Category:University of Cape Town alumni]]
[[Category:X-ray computed tomography]]
[[Category:South African people of Scottish descent]]
[[Category:Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Physical Society]]
[[Category:Members of the National Academy of Medicine]]
[[Category:20th-century American physicists]]