The Faculty History Project documents faculty members who have been associated with the University of Michigan since 1837. Key in this effort is to celebrate the intellectual life of the University. This Faculty History Website is intended as a component of the effort to document the extraordinary academic achievements of Michigan’s faculty in building and sustaining one of the world’s great universities. It provides access to a comprehensive database of information concerning the thousands of faculty members who have served the University of Michigan.
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Classroom Profile

Sir Gordon Brims Black McIvor Sutherland
The Michigan Alumnus 312

The eminent British physicist, GORDON
 B. B. M. SUTHERLAND, has been a 
member of the Michigan faculty since the
 fall of 1949, as Professor of Physics. He
 was regarded as the leading infra-red
 spectroscopist in Britain. His chief research
 interest is to investigate the structure and 
properties of substances through their
 absorption of infrared radiation, i.e. heat 
radiation. He is a Fellow of the Royal
 Society of London. Professor Sutherland 
earned the Bachelor's and Master's degrees
 at St. Andrew's University in Scotland, and 
the Ph.D. and Sc.D. degrees at Cambridge
 University. From 1931-33 he studied at 
Michigan as a Commonwealth Fellow be
fore joining the faculty at Pembroke Col
lege, Cambridge University, where (a part 
from a sojourn in London helping to find
 ways of immunizing time bombs) he remained until coming to Ann Arbor in 1949.