$300,000 each in lieu of patent royalties. For his part, Dunning was awarded the Medal for Merit by President Harry S. Truman. His citation read: Later life In 1946, Dunning became Thayer Lindsley Professor of Applied Science at Columbia. In the immediate post-war years he was Scientific Director for Construction of the Nevis Laboratories, a collaborative effort of Columbia University, the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and the Office of Naval Research. He became Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1950. This ended his active research career, but he was active in fundraising for what became the Seeley Wintersmith Mudd Building and the Terrace Engineering Center extension. By the time he stepped down as Dean in 1969, he had raised $50 million for the school. During the 1950s, Dunning was often consulted on nuclear technology matters by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Rear Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, the head of the Navy's nuclear powered ships project. Dunning was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1948, and the Phi Kappa Tau Hall of Fame. Over the years he served as Chairman of the New York City Board of Education Advisory Committee on Science Manpower, the President's Committee on Supersonic Transport and the Science Advisory Council to the Legislature of the State of New York. He was a Member of the Board, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Science Advisory Committee of the Department of Defense. Fascinated by nuclear technology and eager to share his knowledge with the public, Dunning gave numerous public talks on the subject, and made frequent appearances on television and radio. He helped write a Blondie and Dagwood comic that explained nuclear energy in simple terms. In one experiment, he drank irradiated salt water, and used a geiger counter to demonstrate to his audience how his fingers became radioactive as sodium-24, with its half life of 15 hours, circulated through his bloodstream. He died from a heart attack at his home in Key Biscayne, Florida, on August 25, 1975, and was buried at North Cemetery in Sherman, Connecticut, near where he had another home. He was survived by wife, son and daughter. Selected publications John R. Dunning The Emission and Scattering of Neutrons, Phys. Rev. Volume 45, Issue 9, 586–600 (1934). Institutional citation: Department of Physics, Columbia University. Received 5 March 1934. H. L. Anderson,