Dr. Present joined the faculty of the university’s Physics Department in 1946 and was designated Alumni Distinguished Service Professor in 1969. He retired from the faculty in 1983. He was an authority on molecular structures and nuclear fission, the author of a popular textbook, Kinetic Theory of Gases (1958), and published more than 50 articles in scholarly journals. During World War II, he worked with the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge and made important contributions to the theory of the gaseous diffusion process for separating uranium isotopes. After the war, he was a consultant at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. From 1964 to 1965, he served as chairman of the American Physical Society Southeastern Section. His intellectual contributions to the life of the university have been recognized by placement of a plaque in his honor on a faculty study.