Mike is often on my mind as I look up at his college text on my bookshelf.  This copy of his last Ohio State Engineering Thermodynamics authored text book was received as a special gift from Mike.  I still have fond memories of studing with him  when we were undergraduate mechanical engineering study buddies at the University of Wisconsin from 1958 to 1962.  We maintained our friendship over 65 years as he earned his ME doctorate at the U of Wisconsin and became Professor Mike Moran at Ohio State Universary.   

I just found out that Mike passed on. He was a great fellow: brilliant, kind, gentle, generous and humble.  It was a privilege and pleasure to have shared time with him and Anna, a most  wonderful lady, at Enrico's summer schools and later when he invited me to Ohio. I will always remember him as one of the greatest minds and teachers I had encountered. May he rest in eternal peace and comfort. I send my belated condolences and regards to Anna, Marianna, and Laura and the entire family.

Mike’s wife, daughters, and entire family are in my thoughts today.  And of course I’m remembering Mike as I often do when doing Thermodynamics in my office or classroom.  I learned a great deal from him about the subject and about how to create and maintain a quality book and I miss our collaborations.  I remember him fondly and send all of you my deepest condolences.

in memory  of the smart discussion we have together at the occasion of the 1998 ecos congress   that was held in Nancy 

o,e in numerous other 

    always near of us  MIKE

    we nenver forget   MICHEL FEIDT

Adorned in classic 1970s short shorts. Mike would set a blistering pace for future great neighbors and just an all-around A+ human!
Unbeknownst to Mike, he was an ,early positive influence in my physical fitness. Id see him go on mega mile road runs and doing calisthenics like a part time job! Seeing this discipline and learning he professes at Ohio State, I thought “I wanna be fit and smart like that!“

After I moved away now a young  adult, I was so excited to get a call from Mike with a financial question!! He was so humble with so much knowledge, great conversations with him. Dad always enoyed talking with Mike.

Anna, Marianna, Laura, Just know Mike has enhanced the lives  of so many. Our family is very fortunate to have been a part of his life.


I met Mike Moran in the fall of 1976 as a new PhD student in mechanical engineering. Little did I realize how important Mike would be to me and my family. He became my teacher, my mentor, my champion, my biggest supporter, and my friend. As a graduate student, I taught thermodynamics with him and learned from a master about both thermodynamics and teaching. Although not my major professor, he always took an interest in me. I still remember the Second Law of Thermodynamics Workshop he invited me to attend in Washington DC in August 1979 that introduced me to people and ideas that had long been part of his research. In 1981, I joined the faculty at Ohio State and Mike welcomed me as a colleague. During this time Mike introduced me to Howard Shapiro and our families became best of friends. Thank you, Mike. In 1988, I moved to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and I’m sure Mike’s recommendation helped. For that and the successful 29-year teaching career that followed, I sincerely thank him. I’m sorry I lost contact with him in recent years but teaching out of Moran & Shapiro was a daily reminder of how lucky I am to have known him. Anna, Marianna, and Laura, thank you for sharing him with us. I hope your memories provide some comfort as my memories of him help me.



We’re all deeply saddend by Mike’s passing. 
We have shared many great moments together through the years when you’ve been visiting Denmark. We will cherish these memories. 
Mike was always very generous in sharing his knowledge in a warm and caring manner. He had a great sense of humor and he always made sure that everybody felt comfertable around him. He’s family meant everything to him, and we know that he will be greatly missed.
We sent our warmest thoughts to Tulle and their kids Marianne and Laura and their granchildren.

Best wishes from his family in Denmark

Mike has been a friend and a colleague for 38 years... As a friend, he left me with great memories: our talks, our jokes, our serious moments, our runs together (when in Roma, he loved to run along the Appia Antica).
As a researcher, author and teacher, I owe him A LOT: I profited immensely from our "technical" discussions, he even took the time to painstakingly editing some of my manuscripts, we tested new ideas and old paradigms, criticized (politely but sternly!) sloppy publications, tried to advance our international ECOS group of excellent Thermodynamicists, discreetly made fun of our own and other colleagues peculiarities...
Mike is no longer with us, but his teachings, humor and scientific rigor will stay with me.

Summer school of Thermodynamics, Anzio 2010: Mike pulling a joke at a Panel Meeting

ECOS 2007, Padova: the ECOS "Old Guard"...

It is very sad news that Dr. Moran passed away.  He has been my mentor since my undergraduate at OSU.

Every time I made important career decisions, he was there for me and supported me.  Without his support and mentoring, I would not be who I am.  Dr. Moran had always been kind and supportive of me.

Visiting Dr. Moran's family on Thanksgiving in 1997 was a great memory and honor. I had hardly heard of a professor who invited an undergraduate student on Thanksgiving day.  As a professor myself, following Dr. Moran's legacy, I also invite students to my house on Thanksgiving day.

I also started my running habit because of Dr. Moran.  One day in the late 1990's, I visited his office, and he told me that he ran 2 times a week and also participated in several marathons.  Motivated by his active running habit and health, I also started running.  He told me that I would need a good amount of stretching before running and that even 30 minutes of running twice a week would be beneficial. I have been following his advice since then for more than 20 years

Dr. Moran has made a great impact on me and my family.

His forever student

Hansung Kim

- You should be nodding, "Yes, I see."
- You were off by a million!
- My blood is boiling!
- If you forget your book, you will have to rely on memory.
- No one was irreversibly damaged from that.
- Before I make a dash for the door.
- What's the matter, can't you read?
- Don't take a cookie-cutter approach to these problems.
- If you are a graduating SENIOR!

And I'm sure there are more. I don't remember anything from the class, but my classmates and I used these expressions in our vernacular during our remaining years in college.

Rest in peace, professor Moran.


We will never forget you. Our dear friend Mike Moran.
We in Zaragoza have used Mike's book as the main thermodynamics text.
Our students believed that "The Moran" was a book, not a person, and when I told them that it was my friend Mike Moran, they could not believe that Moran existed because the book is so famous that they saw it as timeless.

Indeed, now my students would be right, Mike is timeless, because his book is. And I will no longer be able to speak of Mike in the present tense but in the memory of a great person who, thanks to him, millions of people all over the world have learned that thermodynamics is not only physics, but a philosophical way of looking at the world that is increasingly important to protect this small planet from our own voracity.
Farewell dear friend. Your work will forever cherish your memory


I am deeply sad to hear that Prof. Moran has passed away.
I was always feeling high respect for him, for both his academic profile and his personality. 
My sincere condolences to his wife and children. 


I was Mike's graduate student from 1977-1985.  He taught me many things but his example of hard work and persistence stand out. He was a stickler for detail and I must have stressed him out with my bad habits, at least initially. By the end of my time in Columbus, I had come around to his approach. I am sad to miss seeing him again. 

I have very fond memories of Mike teaching us Transport using the classic text BSL. It is a challenging treatment for most Mechanical Engineering students.  Mike held our feet to the fire with his high expectations. The result for me was that I learned alot. I also got close with the other students - shared stress has a way of creating a bond.

An incident happened that semester where one of the exams was not crisply copied (mimeographed) resulting in extreme stress on the students who were faced with a tough course and were struggling already. Nobody raised the issue during the exam - I think it was proctored by an assistant. But after the fact, he had a bit of a revolt on his hands. I carried my own observations about the situation back to him, my advisor, hoping to help stem the revolt. Finally he gave a makeup exam where each problem was a derivative of the original with just a taste of additional difficulty. I often thought back on this incident when I was trying to maintain high expectations for my own students. Mike was a good role model - he just did not believe in any dilution of the expectations when it came to his teaching. I often found it difficult to live up to his example over the following years.

I would like to attend the Memorial but will miss it due to other commitments. My deep condolences to his family. 

Sandra Thomas & Diane at Mike's home in Madison 1962

Marianna as baby about 1973 with Jim Thomas

Sandra Thomas OSU graduation celebration at Moran's in 1984 - Mike, Anna, Marianna & Laura with guests Diane & Wayne Thomas

Diane and I are sad to learn of Mike’s passing and extend condolences to Anna, Laura, Marianna and their families.   

Mike and I were friends since the fall of 1957 when we both started as freshman civil engineering students at the University of Wisconsin.  We were teamed as freshman surveying partner students and surveyed on the snow covered hills of our Madison, Wisconsin campus.   We both decided after that semester that switching to mechanical engineering would get us out of the cold. There were other good reasons, of course.    We did much mechanical engineering study together during our UW undergraduate years.  Mike continued on at Wisconsin and earned a Masters and then a PHD in mechanical engineering.    Then he went on to Ohio State making an outstanding career as a Mechanical Engineering Professor.     

In 2019 as a long retired NASA aerospace engineer, I opened Mike’s “Fundamentals of Engineering Thermodynamics” authored text he had given me as a gift.  I spent significant time reading over the first hundred pages.   I wish I’d had a text of that quality and depth when studying “thermo” as a 1950’s UW ME student.   His “thermo” text legacy is a major teaching and learning advancement that will continue to be appreciated by many future engineering students. 
It was a privilege for Diane and I to share friendship with first Mike and then Anna and their family over the last 64 years.

Wayne Thomas


Mike has always been a very good, caring, and trustworthy friend. We will miss him a lot.
Anna, Marianna, and Laura, we send you our warmest condolences.
Mike, we will cherish the memories! You will always remain in our hearts.
Agnes and George Tsatsaronis
Berlin, Germany

Our dear friend and family-member Mike is not here any more.
We will all surely miss him.
He was a fantastic person - intelligent, warm and with a great humor.
We were always comfortable, when we were together- not very often, but always memorable periods.
We wish all the best for Tulle- his dear wife, and for all in his family.

Best wishes from 
Mary- Ann and Lars— and family.



It is with deep sadness that I learned of Mike's passing.  To Anna and his loved ones, you are in our thoughts and prayers.  Mike was a mentor to me when I started (and throughout) my academic career at OSU, then my colleague, and very quickly, my friend.  He and Anna were there for me and my family during our most difficult time and a source of comfort that words alone cannot express.  He was an inspiration  to me and others, and will be sorely missed.  His legacy lives on not only through the careers of others that he helped shape, the students he taught, the teachers he influenced, the people he mentored, but also in the lives he touched.  Mike has left this world a little better than when he first found it, something which we all hope to attain.

From 1977 to 2017 my Dad ran 59,409 miles, which is 2.84 times around the circumference of the earth. He collected almost a pound of pencil shavings from a writing project. He wrote 10 editions of his seminal “Fundamentals of Engineering Thermodynamics” textbook. He had two daughters, one wife, countless friends and all the time in the world for those curious about the world. He gave many F minuses, but always picked up the phone or opened the door for students who wanted to learn. He had one award for teaching named after him at The Ohio State University. He traveled the world. Has a friend on nearly every continent (probably not Antarctica?). He helped with every homework project, made breakfast and lunch, attended every play, game, rally. Reported back on every janitor he met after I started working for the janitors’ union. Was the self-described ‘full service dad,’ and he was. He loved his family and friends exuberantly, welcomed his son-in-law and daughter-in-law into the family with equal joy.  He lived a life beyond measure.

Fifty nine thousand, four hundred and nine miles, he ran 

🎶Five hundred, twenty five thousand, six hundred minutes a year/ How can you measure the life of a woman or a man?🎶

On the Nov. 7 full moon he moved on along. 

A memorial in Columbus will be held in the spring.


Anna and family, I am sorry.  Having known Mike ever since his graduate student days at Wisconsin, it has been a privilege to have cooperated with him on several professional endeavors over the years.  While working seriously and with proficiency, Mike always maintained an affable spirit.  We have shared many memories and friends.  All of us will miss him, for now. 

Howard Shapiro

I cannot come close to expressing the gratitude I have for Mike and his support of me for most of my adult life. He got me engaged in mechanical engineering and we developed a personal and professional relationship that has had unbelievable impact on our field of thermodynamics. I also want to let Anna, Marianna, and Laura know that I am thinking of them and that I give them my love and condolences.  And - thank you Mike Moran!!!!

I have always felt a special bond with Mike since he was the Chair of the search committee that brought me to what at the time was The Department of Mechanical Engineering. Mike was a mentor to me throughout my career and when I taught the undergraduate courses in fluid mechanics I would often use examples from his thermodynamics textbook. His book expertly links the thermal sciences together and is by far the best thermodynamics book on the market. When Scott lab opened, his office was just down the hall from mine and I had the opportunity to just sit and talk with him, about teaching, about grading, about Buckeye football and basketball, and certainly about the necessity of working out which he did on a daily basis. He always had time for me. I will miss him dearly. Our sincerest condolences to Anna and all of Mike’s family. 

When I joined OSU as chairman in 1983, Mike was a well-established scholar who had a unique flair to effectively teach Thermodynamics. He was also the author of one of the best textbooks on the subject which challenged and inspired students, both here at OSU and elsewhere to understand the subject.  Our condolences to Anna


When I joined OSU as chairman in 1983, Mike was a well-established scholar who had a unique flair to effectively teach Thermodynamics. He was also the author of one of the best textbooks on the subject which challenged and inspired students, both here at OSU and elsewhere to understand the subject.  Our condolences to Anna.


This note is to convey my deepest condolences for the passing of Mike Moran.  He is somebody for whom I developed the deepest respect as soon as I joined the faculty at OSU in 2005.  I was asked to teach undergraduate Technical Thermodynamics, a topic I do research in and know quite well.  Less than two chapters into Mike's book, I realized how difficult it is to teach and what a genius Mike was to have presented it this clearly.  I compared his book to the others written on the subject (the first was by Sadi Carnot in 1824, and another notable one was by de Haas, a Nobel Laurate) and it is unquestionably the best. In the classroom too, Mike was a master teacher, whose advice I always followed to the letter.  He was also an extremely kind and helpful colleague.  We will miss him.

A wonderful professor and an even better human being. His mentoring and encouragement guided me through the ME program. I am saddened to learn of his passing, wishing I had one more chance to thank him. He lives on in our hearts. My thoughts and prayers of comfort to his family.

Derrick Brent
BS, ME 1989

Mike Moran was a great faculty colleague and a dedicated and outstanding teacher and mentor who challenged and inspired thousands of students during his career at Ohio State. He will be missed deeply by all whose lives he touched and influenced. My heartfelt condolences to his family.



Mike was a great teacher, author of seminal textbooks, wonderful mentor of students and younger colleagues, and devoted family man. He was always especial for us as we interacted professionally and personally. Mike encouraged Veena to run for her first ½ Marathon by keeping pace with her and giving her the strength to finish. His memories will never fade. Our thoughts are with Anna and the family. 

Raj and Veena


I was a graduate student at the Ohio State University in the Department of Mechanical engineering from 1986 to 1991. I was also a Post-doctoral researcher there from 1991 to 1995. I had the fortune to attend Prof. Moran's Thermodynamics class in 1987 while I was preparing for my PhD qualifying exam. The clarity of the lectures - what was said and what was written on the board,
left me awe-struck. Not surprisingly, the book that Prof. Moran has written on the subject also has the same clarity and is a particular favorite of mine. After having taught this subject for nearly 25 years, I am convinced that the level of perfection that Prof. Moran had achieved cannot even be matched let alone surpassed. I was inspired by teachers like him at OSU to follow them into the academic profession. I am deeply saddened that he is no more. I offer my heartfelt condolences to his family.
Prof. V. Babu, Dept. of Mechanical Eng, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, INDIA


Mike was about to retire when I started at OSU. But in those few years, he had a big influence on me. He was like a father figure who gave me a lot of good advice. Although I have not met him in years, I will miss him. My heartfelt condolences to his family!

Mike Moran was my colleague for 40 years and he and his wife, Anna were close personal friends as our daughters were of the same as their Marianna and Laura. My wife and I have lost a great friend and a world a good person.

OBITUARY

Michael Jay Moran

September 1, 1939 – November 7, 2022

Leppert Mortuaries - Nora

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