Dr. Victor J. Danilov, a Sigma Xi member, former director and president of the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago in 1972–1987, and author of 28 books, died on July 26, 2018, in Evanston, Illinois, at the age of 93.
He was an honor student, school newspaper editor, and star basketball player at a high school in Farrell, Pennsylvania. He received a scholarship to Penn State, where he also edited the student paper and played varsity basketball while earning a bachelor's degree in journalism in two years in 1944–1945 in an accelerated program during the 1940s world war years. He then received a master's degree at Northwestern University in 1946 and a doctor of education at the University of Colorado in 1964.
Dr. Danilov began as a newspaper reporter in Youngstown, Pittsburgh, and Chicago, and then became a journalism instructor at the University of Colorado and Kansas, director of public relations at Illinois Institute of Technology's Armour Research Foundation, science magazine editor, and director and president of the Museum of Science and Industry. After retiring in 1987, he founded and directed a summer short course for museum directors and department heads at the University of Colorado for 17 years. He and his wife, Toni Dewey, then returned to the Chicago area, where he largely continued his writing about museums, devoted largely to their history, collections, exhibits, and programs.