Donald E. Marlowe, agency standards coordinator, Office of Science and Health Coordination, at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Rockville, Md., has been chosen to receive the 2008 W.T. Cavanaugh Memorial Award from ASTM International. Marlowe was cited "for outstanding and distinguished leadership in promoting national and international standards for medical/surgical implants and materials."
Established in 1987, the Cavanaugh Award honors the memory of William T. Cavanaugh, a world leader in the development and dissemination of voluntary standards and chief executive officer of ASTM International from 1970 until his death in 1985. The award acknowledges individuals of widely recognized eminence who have made extraordinary contributions to the field of national and international voluntary standards.
An ASTM International member for more than 35 years, Marlowe is active on Committee F04 on Medical and Surgical Materials and Devices, where he works on several subcommittees and serves as secretary of Subcommittee F04.21 on Osteosynthesis and chair of Subcommittee F04.95, the U.S. Technical Advisory Group for ISO Technical Committee 168 on Prosthetics and Orthotics. He is also a member of Committees E55 on Manufacture of Pharmaceutical Products and E56 on Nanotechnology. A member of the ASTM board of directors from 1994 to 2003, Marlowe was chairman of the board in 2001 and chairman of the Finance and Audit Committee in 1997 and 1998. In 2005, Marlowe received the ASTM Award of Merit and accompanying title of fellow, ASTM's highest organizational recognition for individual contributions to standards activities.
Marlowe began his career in 1963 as a mechanical engineer with the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST). He became a project leader in NBS' Composite Materials Program and later chief of the Dynamic Measurements Group. In 1977, he joined the FDA as a senior mechanical engineer with the Research and Testing Staff of the FDA Bureau of Medical Devices. Marlowe served as director of the Division of Mechanics and Materials Sciences from 1984 until 1995, and director of the Office of Science and Technology at the FDA Center for Devices and Radiological Health from 1995 until 2001. He has been the agency standards coordinator since October 2002.
Outside of ASTM International, Marlowe is co-leader of the U.S. delegation to the ISO Technical Committee on Biological Evaluation (TC 194) and a member of TC 150 on Implants for Surgery, as well as convener of both the Subcommittee on Tissue Safety (SC1) and the Working Group on Sample Preparation and Reference Materials. He is also a member of the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Rehabilitation Engineering Society of North America, and a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
Marlowe holds bachelor's degrees in physics and mechanical engineering and a master's degree in solid mechanics from the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. In addition, he has written nearly 100 papers and presentations in the areas of material properties, product testing, analysis of medical devices, and consensus standards development.
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