Walter Munk

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Walter Heinrich Munk (born October 19, 1917) is an American physical oceanographer. He is professor of geophysics emeritus and holds the Secretary of the Navy/Chief of Naval Operations Oceanography Chair at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.Born in 1917 in Vienna, Austria, Munk was sent to a boys' preparatory school in upper New York state in 1932.The family selected New York because they envisioned a career in finance for Munk in a New York bank with connections to the family business. His father, Dr. Hans Munk, and his mother, Rega Brunner, divorced when Munk was a child. His maternal grandfather was a prominent banker and Austrian politician, Lucian Brunner (1850-1914). His stepfather, Dr. Rudolf Engelsberg, was briefly a member of the Austrian government of President Engelbert Dollfuss.