Longtime Northwestern University engineering professor Isaac Daniel brought progress to the field of advanced composite materials and helped shape how they are used in industries such as aerospace, manufacturing, automotive and sports equipment.
Advanced composite materials are highly durable, lightweight items formed by two or more distinct substances that are tightly bound and can shoulder tremendous weight and pressure. Daniel also created an industry failure theory, called the Northwestern Theory, that helps scientists understand and predict composite materials’ weaknesses and failure when they are under complex stresses.
A native of Greece, Daniel survived the Holocaust in his home country during his childhood, and self-published a personal account of his family’s survival.
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Daniel, 92, died of natural causes Sept. 3 at his home, said his daughter Rebecca Daniel Mottley. He had been a longtime Morton Grove resident.
Isaac Mordochai Daniel was born in Salonika, Greece, in 1933, one of four children. His family members were Sephardic Jews, who were relative newcomers among Greece’s Jewish community, having arrived as a group during the 15th century.
Before World War II, Daniel and his family moved to his father’s hometown, Veria, Greece, where Daniel attended high school. In 1943, Daniel’s family found itself in the crosshairs during the Holocaust, his daughter said. Nazis wanted to deport Veria’s entire Jewish community, and Daniel and his father escaped from a synagogue after police blocked its entrance.
Hiding out in their basement apartment, they initially avoided being deported, but eventually were betrayed and arrested, his daughter said. Execution was staved off by Daniel’s mother’s birthright Italian citizenship, but the family eventually was transferred to a transit camp in Salonika and faced deportation to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.
His daughter said the family was soon released and allowed to live in Athens, Greece’s Italian-controlled zone, but with German forces taking control of Athens, the family began moving from place to place, surviving repeated arrests, searches and escapes.
After liberation, Daniel’s family returned to Veria, counting their blessings as most of Greece’s Jewish community had been killed by German forces. The family relocated to Chicago in 1953 and put down roots in its Sephardic Jewish community, residing first in Hyde Park and then in West Rogers Park.
Daniel enrolled at the Illinois Institute of Technology, getting a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering in 1957, followed by a master’s degree in 1959 and a Ph.D. in 1964. Daniel initially didn’t want to pursue research or an academic career, his daughter said, but leaders at IIT’s Research Institute took an interest in his work and wanted to hire him.
He was an assistant research engineer at the institute from 1959 until 1961, an associate research engineer from 1961 until 1962 and a research engineer from 1962 until 1964.
Daniel then moved into more of a leadership role, where he headed projects as a senior research engineer and manager from 1964 until 1975, when he became a scientific adviser at the institute.
In 1982, Daniel became an engineering professor at IIT. He continued performing research. In 1986, he left IIT to join Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering as a professor of theoretical and applied mechanics, and he also had a joint affiliation with the university’s departments of mechanical engineering and of civil and environmental engineering.
While at Northwestern, Daniel continued researching experimental mechanics and composite materials. Daniel’s research included stress analysis, fracture mechanics, composite-material processing and damage mechanics.
Some of Daniel’s composite-material innovations — particularly in the biomedical field and for the federal government — continue to be used, his daughter said.
He also held four patents, co-authored a widely used textbook, “Engineering Mechanics of Composite Materials,” and published more than 500 academic papers in technical journals and conference proceedings.
“Isaac Daniel made significant contributions to the fields of civil and mechanical engineering in a wide range of topics, particularly in experimental mechanics and composite materials,” said Emmanuel Gdoutos, a former visiting professor at Northwestern and a retired engineering professor at Greece’s Democritus University of Thrace, in an email. “He can be considered the father of composite materials research, (as) his research on composites spanned more than half a century. His work and ideas have been and will be indelibly imprinted on the pages of solid mechanics history.”
Gdoutos also said Daniel was “a sincere, honest, truthful, candid, genuine, straightforward (and) warm-hearted individual, loyal friend and colleague.”
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Duke University mechanical engineering and materials science professor John Dolbow was a doctoral student in Northwestern’s theoretical and applied mechanics program from 1995 until 1999, and took Daniel’s introductory graduate course on composites. He called Daniel “a true gentleman and an excellent teacher.”
“He was one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, and his enthusiasm for the material he taught was unusual,” Dolbow said.
Iowa State University engineering professor Wenjie Xia was a Northwestern graduate student who took Daniel’s experimental mechanics course in 2011. He recalled Daniel’s mentorship and advice about navigating Ph.D. studies.
“Professor Daniel offered thoughtful guidance and, more importantly, gave me confidence and encouragement,” Xia said. “I remember him as an excellent teacher and a generous mentor who cared about students beyond the courses he taught. His ability to guide and reassure a new Ph.D. student during a challenging transition is what stands out most clearly to me.”
Daniel retired from Northwestern in 2019 at age 85.
Outside of work, Daniel enjoyed spending time with his family, especially his grandchildren, as well as following the news and reading historical fiction. He also was a great fan of his native language, Ladino, a Judeo-Spanish language spoken by Sephardic Jews that had been widely used in Greece before World War II.
Daniel, who could speak seven languages, loved Ladino literature and music, and would sing songs in Ladino, his daughter said. He also worked on a Ladino dictionary.
“Before he became an engineer, he wanted to be a Greek poet,” she said.
In 2023, Daniel self-published a 273-page memoir, “Seven Miracles – Surviving the Holocaust in Greece,” which covers his family’s challenges and experiences during the Holocaust, including while in hiding, while on the run and while under arrest.
Daniel also contributed a remembrance about his time during the Holocaust to Northwestern University Press’ 2013 book “Out of Chaos: Hidden Children Remember the Holocaust.”
In addition to his daughter, Daniel is survived by his wife, Elaine; another daughter, Belinda; a son, Max; four grandchildren; and a brother, Samuel.
Services were held.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.