John S. Waugh, an MIT Institute Professor emeritus and a resident of Lincoln for almost 50 years, died August 22 at the age of 85 of complications from Alzheimer's disease. Waugh moved to Lincoln in 1965 with his first wife Nancy and young children Alice and Fred. He was married to his wife Susan for 31 years and they spent many happy years traveling, sailing the coast of Maine and raising a succession of beloved Labrador retrievers. Born in Willimantic, Conn., in 1929, Waugh received his bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in 1949, graduating summa cum laude with highest distinction in chemistry. He received his PhD in chemistry and physics from Caltech in 1953. He came to MIT as an instructor in chemistry that same year and became assistant professor in 1955, associate professor in 1958, professor in 1962, and the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry in 1973. Waugh's pioneering work in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) made it possible to study the molecular structures of solids, including proteins involved in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, diabetes, and many other disorders. NMR uses the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei to unravel the structures and dynamics of substances containing those nuclei. His work paved the way for development of the MRI machines (magnetic resonance imaging) that are widely used in medicine today. As a grad student at Caltech, Waugh built his first NMR system with a borrowed magnet and some World War II surplus electronics. When he arrived at MIT, NMR was already a valuable tool for the study of molecular structure—but only for liquid samples. In the 1960s, Waugh developed a way to use NMR to study solids by applying a special sequence of sharp, intense pulses of radiofrequency power. This made NMR useful for analyzing things that don't dissolve in water, including proteins, nucleic acids such as DNA, and some drugs. That technique eventually played a role in many of the past half-century's discoveries in chemistry, physics, biology, and materials science; it is now one of science's most widely used tools. In 2011, Waugh told MIT News that he never anticipated the wide impact his work has turned out to have. "I think that's the way most [scientists] are," he said. "You start off doing some limited kind of stuff that makes use of any particular talents or knowledge you happen to have. You don't think of it as being something that's going to revolutionize the world. It's just something interesting to do, and might be fun." Waugh was an Institute Professor, the highest title that can be awarded to an MIT faculty member in recognition of a professor's extraordinary research achievements and dedication to the school. Institute Professors are granted a unique level of freedom and flexibility to pursue their research and teaching interests without regular departmental or school responsibilities, and usually no more than twelve professors hold this title at any one time. In 1988, he also received MIT's James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award, an honor bestowed by faculty colleagues in recognition of extraordinary professional accomplishments and service to the Institute. Waugh was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a former chairman of the Division of Chemical Physics of the American Physical Society. He received a number of awards and prizes for his work, including the Welch Award, given for basic research that benefits humankind, Caltech's Distinguished Alumnus Award and an honorary doctorate from Dartmouth. Waugh is survived by his wife, Susan Waugh of Lincoln; his daughter, Alice Waugh, son-in-law Ben Dubrovsky and granddaughters Sarah and Becky Dubrovsky, also of Lincoln; and his son Fred, daughter-in-law Stori Waugh and grandsons Jack, Ted and Sam of Austin, Texas.