François Cornet
We are sad to note the passing of François Cornet, who died suddenly of a heart attack on Saturday, May 23, 2020.
Cornet worked at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris and was a Visiting Scientist at Stanford University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He specialized in measurement and modeling of stress fields, rock-fluid interactions, and development of in situ, geophysical laboratories. He was an international consultant and had recently retired from the University of Strasbourg. He had most recently been working remotely with Japanese colleagues.
Cornet completed his doctoral studies with CEGE’s Professor Emeritus Charles Fairhurst in the early 1970s. In a recent tribute to his adviser, Cornet described his time at UMN as “very dynamic…The atmosphere was relaxed yet exciting, as we were leading international research on rock fracture and in situ stress measurements. The approach was both theoretical and experimental, with many industrial applications, as in the oil industry with hydraulic fracturing and in the mining industry with issues on roof stability related to deep mines.”
François Cornet will be missed by many colleagues and friends.
Dr. François Henri Cornet—an Irreplaceable Colleague
A tribute by Charles Fairhurst, Ph.D., Adviser to Dr. François Cornet
I am deeply saddened by the death of this truly remarkable husband and father and researcher.
For his five years (1970–75) as a student at the University of Minnesota, François Cornet was one of my advisees and a member of my family also. The first of my seven children grew from 12-17 years old, the youngest from 3-8. He taught all of them a lot, even beyond the lessons in skiing and French. These bonds remain strong to this day. We all feel a loss.
François Cornet’s contributions to international scholarship are well documented, but why does the mention of his name always bring a smile to his colleagues? No one will ever match the panache or evident joie de vivre and sincerity that accompanied any technical discussion with him.
You may have heard this true story of a young student who, at the end of one of his talks, raised her hand to ask, “Dr. Cornet, I heard you present essentially the same material in a talk that you gave about one year ago, but you arrived at a very different set of conclusions. How do you explain that?”
“You are quite right,” he replied. “I have an active mind, and am striving constantly to understand better. Come back in one more year and you will probably hear me present still other conclusions.”
It is painful to hear that François Cornet was wrenched from our midst. He was in full form, stretching his mind as always. It will not be easy to adjust to life without him, but our memories will always come with a smile.
Rest in peace, François! You will not be forgotten.