Herman Carr

Herman Y. Carr (November 28, 1924 – April 9, 2008), who published as H. Y. Carr, was an American physicist and pioneer of magnetic resonance imaging.

Carr was born in Alliance, Ohio. He received his BS, MS and PHD from Harvard University, where he studied under Edward Purcell. He later moved to Rutgers University, where he was professor. He retired in 1987.

In 2003 the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to Paul C. Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield for their work on MRI. There was some controversy when Carr was not awarded the prize jointly with Lauterbur and Mansfield. See Nobel Prize controversies.

Ten years before the Nobel announcement, Carr wrote to Physics Today noting that both his 1952 demonstration of use of magnetic gradients for spatial localization and his actual demonstration of 1-D "imaging" had been overlooked by the radiologist Felix Wehrli in a 1992 article. In a later letter to Physics Today, Carr noted that the 1952 MRI demonstration had also been overlooked by Bertram Schwarzschild in a 2003 article which referred to Wehrli’s 1992 article. Schwarzschild did mention the 1952 use of field gradients to correlate nuclear signals to spatial location and thus enable the measurements of both diffusion and flow, but the 1952 MRI measurement of structure was not mentioned.

As a professed pacifist he served on the National General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church where he was a representative to Russia during glasnost promoting Christianity, justice and world peace. He was recognized and honored in 1995 with the Francis Asbury Award for fostering United Methodist Ministries in Higher Education. He was a very active member of the United Methodist Church of New Brunswick where he served many capacities as a church layman. His special interest was focused on the church's Urban Outreach to area public housing and men’s shelters, world peace and social justice.

Herman Carr, 83, died peacefully on April 9, 2008 at his home in Bridgewater, NJ. Surviving are his children, Robert Carr and Amanda Carr-Sozer.