Martin Julian Burger

Who was Martin Julian Burger?

Martin Julian Buerger was an American crystallographer. He was a Professor of Mineralogy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He invented the X-ray precession camera for studies in crystallography. Buerger authored twelve textbooks/monographs and over 200 technical articles. He was awarded the Arthur L. Day Medal by the Geological Society of America in 1951. The mineral fluor-buergerite was named for him. The MJ Buerger Award was established in his honor.

Buerger was a member of the Provisional International Crystallographic Committee chaired by P. P. Ewald from 1946 to 1948, and he continued as a member of the IUCr Executive Committee from 1948 to 1951. He was also a member of the Commission on International Tables from its establishment in 1948 until 1981.

He was the great-grandson of Ernst Moritz Buerger, who led a group of Lutheran immigrants from Germany to the United States in 1838, and helped found what is now the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.

In 1956, Buerger was the third person to have been appointed Institute Professor at MIT.