Obituary: Donald Stookey, he changed cooking forever

Donald Stookey, 99, a scientist with Corning Glass Works who in the 1950s accidentally discovered a remarkably strong material that could be used not just to make the nose cone of a missile but also to contain a casserole in both a refrigerator and a hot oven — its durable culinary incarnation was called CorningWare — died Tuesday in Rochester, N.Y.

Stookey invented synthetic glass ceramics, the highly versatile range of materials that continue to be refined for new uses, including glass stovetops. He also developed photosensitive glass and glass used in eyeglasses that darken in response to light.

He was credited with creating thousands of jobs, limiting squinting and averting countless broken dishes. In 1986, he received the National Medal of Technology.

In May 1957, Corning announced that it had trademarked Pyroceram, a ceramic made from glass that could withstand temperatures of up to 1,300 degrees. The company displayed a cone it had developed for a guided missile, saying the material was harder than carbon steel and would allow radar signals to pass through it. But missiles were only part of its plan for Pyroceram.

A 1957 article in the New York Times reported that the material was "expected to be used in combustion type electric turbines, guided missiles, jet engines of airplanes that fly at supersonic speeds, oil refining, chemical processing and home cookware."

Stookey, then the head of what Corning called its fundamental research department, was present for the announcement. Not long afterward, marketing teams from Corning tested prototypes of CorningWare with consumers, particularly women.

Stookey joined Corning Glass Works in New York in 1940, the same year he graduated with a doctorate in physical chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He immersed himself in research, studying the complex chemistry of oxidation and its effects on glass.

The cause was lung cancer.

As an assistant in the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan, Harris helped prosecute the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the leader of the Unification Church, on tax evasion charges, as well as Imelda Marcos, the widow of former President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, on corruption charges.

As the first woman to head the Justice Department's criminal division, she supervised 400 lawyers, created a computer crime section and set up a task force to investigate violence against abortion clinics. She led the early part of the investigation into the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

The House of Representatives impeached Clinton on Dec. 19, 1998, on the grounds that he had lied about and covered up his relationship with Lewinsky, a 22-year-old White House intern. The charges were perjury and obstruction of justice. In a trial that ended the following February, the Senate voted not to convict the president. But significant questions lingered about the government lawyers' interview with Lewinsky at the outset of the investigation, in January 1998.

Harris entered the fray after Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel who had directed the investigation that led to impeachment, resigned in 1999. In February 2000, his replacement, Robert W. Ray, appointed Harris and a colleague, Mary Frances Harkenrider, to investigate the much-discussed episode as special counsels.

The cause was complications from Parkinson's disease.

A native of Puerto Rico, Albacete came to Washington in the 1960s to study aeronautics and physics at Catholic University. Called to the priesthood, he said, he abandoned his scientific career to embark on a spiritual one. He became a theological adviser to church leaders and was known for his erudite yet approachable insights on faith.

Often, humor was his leaven.

"I used to think priests knew everything," he recalled his mother telling him on the day of his ordination. "Now I worry," she added, "because you are a priest and I know you don't know anything."

Many Americans met Albacete through his appearances on CNN and the Charlie Rose public affairs talk show or through his writings in the New York Times and the New Yorker magazine. He sparred with Christopher Hitchens, the learned, sometimes fulminating public intellectual who was an avowed atheist.

"You can't help it," he said. "You've fallen in love."

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