Harvey Kent Bowen PhD ’71, a longtime MIT professor celebrated for his pioneering work in manufacturing education, innovative ceramics research, and generous mentorship, died July 17 in Belmont, Massachusetts. He was 83.
At MIT, he was the founding engineering faculty leader of Leaders for Manufacturing (LFM) — now Leaders for Global Operations (LGO) — a program that continues to shape engineering and management education nearly four decades later.
Bowen spent 22 years on the MIT faculty, returning to his alma mater after earning both a master’s degree in materials science and a PhD in materials science and ceramics processing there. He held the Ford Professorship of Engineering, with appointments in the departments of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE) and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, before transitioning to Harvard Business School, where he bridged the worlds of engineering, manufacturing, and management.
Bowen’s prodigious research output spans 190 articles, 45 Harvard case studies, and two books. In addition to his scholarly contributions, those who knew him best say his visionary understanding of the connection between management and engineering, coupled with his intellect and warm leadership style, set him apart at a time of rapid growth at MIT.
A pioneering physical ceramics researcher
Bowen was born on Nov. 21, 1941, in Salt Lake City, Utah. As an MIT graduate student in the 1970s, he helped to redefine the study of ceramics — transforming it into the scientific field now known as physical ceramics, which focuses on the structure, properties, and behavior of ceramic materials.
“Prior to that, it was the art of ceramic composition,” says Michael Cima, the David H. Koch Professor of Engineering in DMSE. “What Kent and a small group of more-senior DMSE faculty were doing was trying to turn that art into science.”
Bowen advanced the field by applying scientific rigor to how ceramic materials were processed. He applied concepts from the developing field of colloid science — the study of particles evenly distributed in another material — to the manufacturing of ceramics, forever changing how such objects were made.
“That sparked a whole new generation of people taking a different look at how ceramic objects are manufactured,” Cima recalls. “It was an opportunity to make a big change. Despite the fact that physical ceramics — composition, crystal structure and so forth — had turned into a science, there still was this big gap: how do you make these things? Kent thought this was the opportunity for science to have an impact on the field of ceramics.”
One of his greatest scholarly accomplishments was “Introduction to Ceramics, 2nd edition,” with David Kingery and Donald Uhlmann, a foundational textbook he helped write early in his career. The book, published in 1976, helped maintain DMSE’s leading position in ceramics research and education.
“Every PhD student in ceramics studied that book, all 1,000 pages, from beginning to end, to prepare for the PhD qualifying exams,” says Yet-Ming Chiang, Kyocera Professor of Ceramics in DMSE. “It covered almost every aspect of the science and engineering of ceramics known at that time. That was why it was both an outstanding teaching text as well as a reference textbook for data.”
In ceramics processing, Bowen was also known for his control of particle size, shape, and size distribution, and how those factors influence sintering, the process of forming solid materials from powders.
Over time, Bowen’s interest in ceramics processing broadened into a larger focus on manufacturing. As such, Bowen was also deeply connected to industry and traveled frequently, especially to Japan, a leader in ceramics manufacturing.
“One time, he came back from Japan and told all of us graduate students that the students there worked so hard they were sleeping in the labs at night — as a way to prod us,” Chiang recalls.
While Bowen’s work in manufacturing began in ceramics, he also became a consultant to major companies, including automakers, and he worked with Lee Iacocca, the Ford executive behind the Mustang. Those experiences also helped spark LFM, which evolved into LGO. Bowen co-founded LFM with former MIT dean of engineering Tom Magnanti.
“I’m still in awe of Kent’s audacity and vision in starting the LFM program. The scale and scope of the program were, even for MIT standards, highly ambitious. Thirty-seven successful years later, we all owe a great sense of gratitude to Kent,” says LGO Executive Director Thomas Roemer, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Bowen as mentor, teacher
Bowen’s scientific leadership was matched by his personal influence. Colleagues recall him as a patient, thoughtful mentor who valued creativity and experimentation.
“He had a lot of patience, and I think students benefited from that patience. He let them go in the directions they wanted to — and then helped them out of the hole when their experiments didn’t work. He was good at that,” Cima says.
His discipline was another hallmark of his character. Chiang was an undergraduate and graduate student when Bowen was a faculty member. He fondly recalls his tendency to get up early, a source of amusement for his 3.01 (Kinetics of Materials) class.
“One time, some students played a joke on him. They got to class before him, set up an electric griddle, and cooked breakfast in the classroom before he arrived,” says Chiang. “When we all arrived, it smelled like breakfast.”
Bowen took a personal interest in Chiang’s career trajectory, arranging for him to spend a summer in Bowen’s lab through the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. Funded by the Department of Energy, the project explored magnetohydrodynamics: shooting a high-temperature plasma made from coal fly ash into a magnetic field between ceramic electrodes to generate electricity.
“My job was just to sift the fly ash, but it opened my eyes to energy research,” Chiang recalls.
Later, when Chiang was an assistant professor at MIT, Bowen served on his career development committee. He was both encouraging and pragmatic.
“He pushed me to get things done — to submit and publish papers at a time when I really needed the push,” Chiang says. “After all the happy talk, he would say, ‘OK, by what date are you going to submit these papers?’ And that was what I needed.”
After leaving MIT, Bowen joined Harvard Business School (HBS), where he wrote numerous detailed case studies, including one on A123 Systems, a battery company Chiang co-founded in 2001.
“He was very supportive of our work to commercialize battery technology, and starting new companies in energy and materials,” Chiang says.
Bowen was also a devoted mentor for LFM/LGO students, even while at HBS. Greg Dibb MBA ’04, SM ’04 recalls that Bowen agreed to oversee his work on the management philosophy known as the Toyota Production System (TPS) — a manufacturing system developed by the Japanese automaker — responding kindly to the young student’s outreach and inspiring him with methodical, real-world advice.
“By some miracle, he agreed and made the time to guide me on my thesis work. In the process, he became a mentor and a lifelong friend,” Dibb says. “He inspired me in his way of working and collaborating. He was a master thinker and listener, and he taught me by example through his Socratic style, asking me simple but difficult questions that required rigor of thought.
“I remember he asked me about my plan to learn about manufacturing and TPS. I came to him enthusiastically with a list of books I planned to read. He responded, ‘Do you think a world expert would read those books?’”
In trying to answer that question, Dibb realized the best way to learn was to go to the factory floor.
“He had a passion for the continuous improvement of manufacturing and operations, and he taught me how to do it by being an observer and a listener just like him — all the time being inspired by his optimism, faith, and charity toward others.”
Faith was a cornerstone of Bowen’s life outside of academia. He served a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Central Germany Mission and held several leadership roles, including bishop of the Cambridge, Massachusetts Ward, stake president of the Cambridge Stake, mission president of the Tacoma, Washington Mission, and temple president of the Boston, Massachusetts Temple.
An enthusiastic role model who inspired excellence
During early-morning conversations, Cima learned about Bowen’s growing interest in manufacturing, which would spur what is now LGO. Bowen eventually became recognized as an expert in the Toyota Production System, the company’s operational culture and practice which was a major influence on the LGO program’s curriculum design.
“I got to hear it from him — I was exposed to his early insights,” Cima says. “The fact that he would take the time every morning to talk to me — it was a huge influence.”
Bowen was a natural leader and set an example for others, Cima says.
“What is a leader? A leader is somebody who has the kind of infectious enthusiasm to convince others to work with them. Kent was really good at that,” Cima says. “What’s the way you learn leadership? Well, you’d look at how leaders behave. And really good leaders behave like Kent Bowen.”
MIT Sloan School of Management professor of the practice Zeynep Ton praises Bowen’s people skills and work ethic: “When you combine his belief in people with his ability to think big, something magical happens through the people Kent mentored. He always pushed us to do more,” Ton recalls. “Whenever I shared with Kent my research making an impact on a company, or my teaching making an impact on a student, his response was never just ‘good job.’ His next question was: ‘How can you make a bigger impact? Do you have the resources at MIT to do it? Who else can help you?’”
A legacy of encouragement and drive
With this drive to do more, Bowen embodied MIT’s ethos, colleagues say.
“Kent Bowen embodies the MIT ‘mens et manus’ [‘mind and hand’] motto professionally and personally as an inveterate experimenter in the lab, in the classroom, as an advisor, and in larger society,” says MIT Sloan senior lecturer Steve Spear. “Kent’s consistency was in creating opportunities to help people become their fullest selves, not only finding expression for their humanity greater than they could have achieved on their own, but greater than they might have even imagined on their own. An extraordinary number of people are directly in his debt because of this personal ethos — and even more have benefited from the ripple effect.”
Gregory Dibb, now a leader in the autonomous vehicle industry, is just one of them.
“Upon hearing of his passing, I immediately felt that I now have even more responsibility to step up and try to fill his shoes in sacrificing and helping others as he did — even if that means helping an unprepared and overwhelmed LGO grad student like me,” Dibb says.
Bowen is survived by his wife, Kathy Jones; his children, Natalie, Jennifer Patraiko, Melissa, Kirsten, and Jonathan; his sister, Kathlene Bowen; and six grandchildren.