In Memoriam: Professor Lou Albright

Chris Beytes

The world has lost one of its venerable names in agricultural engineering. Louis “Lou” Albright, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University, passed away March 26 in Ithaca, New York. He was 81.

Lou was a life-long Cornell man, having earned his bachelor’s (ag engineering ’63), master’s (food science ’65) and Ph.D. (ag engineering ’72) at the school. And he taught at Cornell for most of his career—from 1974 to 2010—with only a brief stint away, at UC-Davis, in the early ’70s.

Lou’s research specialty was environmental control and energy management in agricultural buildings, primarily greenhouses and plant growth chambers. His teaching focused primarily on sustainable and renewable energy system design and operation. GT