proposals for an interdisciplinary materials research program. Hughes was appointed to a four-person committee charged with writing the proposal that ultimately funded the LRSM, established in 1960.

Hughes returned to Cornell in 1964 as a full professor of chemistry and was named director of the Materials Science Center (now the Cornell Center for Materials Research) in 1968. He served in that role until 1974, when he was named by President Gerald Ford as a senior science policy analyst in the Office of the Science Adviser to the President.

Also in 1974, Ford named Hughes assistant director of the National Science Foundation, a position he held until 1976.

Hughes left his professorship at Cornell in 1980 to become president of Associated Universities, a nonprofit that builds and manages national research laboratories, includingthe National Radio Astronomy Observatory. He held that post for 17 years.

Hughes, who was made professor emeritus of chemistry at Cornell in 1988, represented U.S. science interests internationally on numerous occasions. In June 1975, he headed the U.S. delegations to the Eighth Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting in Oslo, Norway, and was a member of several U.S.-USSR joint committees over the years. He also served as a delegate to the board of the U.S.-Israel Science Foundation, as well as the U.S.-India Joint Committee for Science and Technology.

Hughes was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Astronomical Society, the American Chemical Society, the American Crystallography Society, the American Physical Society, Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa.

Robert Plane, professor emeritus in the Department of Chemistry