John S. Haggerty, Ph.D., 70, of Lincoln, Mass., died June 25, 2009 at Life Care Center of Acton from complications of his twenty year battle with PD. He was the husband of Mary Jo (Burns) Haggerty.
Born in Vienna, Virginia on Oct. 23, 1938, he was the son of the late John J. and Alice L. (Scarseth) Haggerty.
He attended schools in Virginia and world-wide as the son of an economist and diplomat with the State Department. He graduated from Paris American High School in 1957. He received a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass.
For many years, prior to his retirement/disability in 1998, he was employed at MIT as a senior research scientist with joint appointment between the departments of material science and engineering and materials processing center. Previously, from 1964 until 1977, Haggerty was a senior staff member in the materials section of R&D at Arthur D. Little in Cambridge.
A Lincoln resident since 1968, Haggerty was an avid sailor and pilot. He also enjoyed bicycling, woodworking, “tinkering,” scuba diving and traveling with his family.
In addition to his wife, Mary Jo, he is survived by two daughters, Alice Haggerty Cotter and her husband Tim of Virginia and Caitlin Haggerty Unwin and her husband Brian of Wayland; one son, Jonathan Burns Haggerty of Lincoln, three grandchildren, Benjamin and Emma Cotter and Charlie Unwin; One brother, Edward Denis Haggerty and his wife Linda of Conn.; and one niece, Shana Haggerty of Conn., his sister-in-law Cathy Ann Jarvis and her husband Paul, and nephew, Bryan, and niece, Lauren, as well as his mother-in-law, Dorothy Burns, all of Michigan.