Jörg C. Meyer is the official scientific glassblower of the University of California, Irvine.[1] [2] [3]
Meyer was born in Berlin, Germany,[3] and learned glassblowing from his father and grandfather, who both worked in the same trade.[1] [3] He traveled to Australia, and blew glass for the Australian National University in Canberra, before moving again to Southern California.[3] He was hired at UC Irvine by chemist Frank Sherwood Rowland at the founding of the university in 1965,[1] and worked with Rowland and Mario J. Molina on their Nobel-prize-winning research on ozone depletion.[2] As well as making scientific equipment for chemists, physicists, and atmospheric scientists, his creations have included a glass baseball mitt for Ralph J. Cicerone and a non-functional glass clarinet for UCI chemist Harold W. Moore.[1]
Meyer has also developed stainless steel machinery for drying and purifying solvents, replacing previous methods using glassware that had a tendency to shatter.[2] [4] While working at UC Irvine in 1967, Meyer and his wife Allison founded a small company, GlassContour (now Seca Solvent Systems), through which he commercialized this purification process.[5] The Meyers sold GlassContour in 2004 and in 2010 founded a second company, JC Meyer Solvent Systems, which also sells Meyer's stainless steel purification systems.[6]
As well as for his glass and solvent purification work, Meyer is known for his appearance in a National Geographic magazine photo in 1965, riding a 40-foot whale shark as a professional diver in Australia.[3] [7] He is also a falconer[3] and has helped to rehabilitate injured birds of prey.[7]
In 2015, Meyer won the annual award for outstanding staff achievement of the UC Irvine Alumni Association.[8]