Joseph Dixon, professor emeritus of chemistry and former head of the Penn State Department of Chemistry, died Feb. 7 at the age of 93.

Born in Philadelphia on Nov. 4, 1919, Dixon began his career in chemistry in 1937 as an undergraduate student at Penn State, receiving his bachelor's and master's degrees before earning his doctorate in chemistry in 1946. He then became a chemistry instructor at Penn State. From 1951 to 1955, he was a chemist with the California Research Corp. and an associate professor of chemistry at Lafayette College. He then returned to Penn State as a member of the chemistry faculty in 1955, attaining the rank of professor in 1961. His research interests included the study of compounds of organolithium and organomagnesium, the structure of molecules and the physical properties of organic systems.