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John Gleaves, an emeritus professor at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, passed away on Monday, June 2, 2025. He was 79 years old.

Gleaves served on the chemical engineering faculty from 1988 until 2022. His investigations concentrated on heterogeneous catalysis.

He was a co-inventor of the Temporal Analysis of Products (TAP) reactor system, a project he initiated while at Monsanto Co. He obtained a U.S. patent for it in 1986. In 1992, he founded Mithra Technologies, a private enterprise that produced many of the TAP reactors currently in operation.

“He instilled a sense of wonder and fascination for science in his students,” remarked Gregory Yablonski, an adjunct professor who co-led the Heterogeneous Kinetics and Particle Chemistry Laboratory at WashU alongside Gleaves. “He made scientific inquiry enjoyable and was celebrated for his captivating narratives.”

Gleaves acquired a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Louisville in 1968, followed by master’s and Ph.D. degrees in physical chemistry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1972 and 1975, respectively.

He is survived by his three children: John, Chris, and Cara Gleaves, along with other extended family members.

Access the complete obituary on the McKelvey Engineering website.

The article John Gleaves, engineering professor emeritus, 79 first appeared on The Source.

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