Mac Elwyn Van Valkenburg (October 5, 1921–March 19, 1997) was an American

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

and university professor. He wrote seven textbooks and numerous scientific publications.

Early life and education

Van Valkenburg was born in Union, Utah. He graduated from the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

in 1943 with a

Bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in electrical engineering, received a master's degree in electrical engineering from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1946, and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in electrical engineering from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1952, under advisor

Oswald Garrison Villard, Jr. Oswald Garrison "Mike" Villard Jr. (September 17, 1916 – January 7, 2004) was an American professor of electrical engineering at Stanford University. Early life and education Villard was born in Dobbs Ferry, New York, to a distinguished family. ...

Career

Van Valkenburg was a professor at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

from 1955 to 1966, then joined

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

as professor and head of electrical engineering until 1974, when he returned to UIUC. He received an endowed position, the

W. W. Grainger W. W. Grainger, Inc. is an American Fortune 500 industrial supply company founded in 1927 in Chicago by William W. (Bill) Grainger. He founded the company in order to provide consumers with access to a consistent supply of motors. The company n ...

Professorship, in 1982, and became Dean of the

College of Engineering Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education (bachelor's and/or master's degree), and any advanced education and specializations that ...

in 1984. Van Valkenburg was author of seven textbooks and numerous scientific publications. He died in

Orem, Utah Orem is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States, in the northern part of the state. It is adjacent to Provo, Lindon, and Vineyard and is approximately south of Salt Lake City. Orem is one of the principal cities of the Provo-Orem, Utah Me ...

at the age of 75.

Awards and memberships

* Member of the National Academy of Engineering * The Lamme Medal, the highest honor of the American Society for Engineering Education * The

IEEE Centennial Medal The IEEE Centennial Medal was a medal minted and awarded in 1984 ''to persons deserving of special recognition for extraordinary achievement'' to celebrate the Centennial of the founding of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (I ...

in 1984 * The ASEE George Westinghouse Award (1963) * The

IEEE Education Medal The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

(1972) * Halliburton Engineering Education Leadership Award of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois. The

IEEE Education Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

offers an annual Mac Van Valkenburg Early Career Teaching Award. UIUC established the M. E. Van Valkenburg Graduate Research Award in 1990. His

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

students have included: *

Leon O. Chua Leon Ong Chua (; ; born June 28, 1936) is an American electrical engineer and computer scientist. He is a professor in the electrical engineering and computer sciences department at the University of California, Berkeley, which he joined in 1971. ...

('64; IEEE Fellow and Professor in the electrical engineering and computer sciences department at the University of California, Berkeley, considered to be the father of nonlinear circuit theory and

cellular neural network In computer science and machine learning, cellular neural networks (CNN) or cellular nonlinear networks (CNN) are a parallel computing paradigm similar to neural networks, with the difference that communication is allowed between neighbouring units ...

s) * Prof. VGK Murthi (Prof. and Dean at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India) * Franklin Kuo ('58; Prof. at the University of Hawaii), who was instrumental in the development of the ''

Aloha protocol ALOHAnet, also known as the ALOHA System, or simply ALOHA, was a pioneering computer networking system developed at the University of Hawaii. ALOHAnet became operational in June 1971, providing the first public demonstration of a wireless packe ...

'' *

Jose B. Cruz Jr. Jose Bejar Cruz Jr. (born September 17, 1932) is a noted control theorist and a Distinguished Professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ohio State University. Cruz was elected a member of the National Aca ...

('59; control theorist and Prof. at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

) *

King-Sun Fu King-Sun Fu (; October 2, 1930 – April 29, 1985) was a Chinese-born American computer scientist. He was a Goss Distinguished Professor at Purdue University School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in West Lafayette, Indiana. He was instru ...

('59; founding president of the

International Association for Pattern Recognition The International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR), founded in 1978 by Purdue University computer scientist King-Sun Fu, is an international association of non-profit, scientific, or professional organizations (being national, multi-natio ...

and Prof. at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

) *

S. L. Hakimi Seifollah Louis Hakimi (1932–June 23, 2005) was an Iranian-American mathematician born in Iran, a professor emeritus at Northwestern University, where he chaired the department of electrical engineering from 1973 to 1978. He was chair of the ...

('59; mathematician at

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

) * Shlomo Karni ('60; Prof. at the

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25,400 ...

, founding dean of engineering at Tel Aviv University '70) *

Steven B. Sample Steven Browning Sample (November 29, 1940 – March 29, 2016) was the 10th president of the University of Southern California (USC).

('65; President of

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Valkenburg, Mac 1921 births 1997 deaths 20th-century American educators 20th-century American engineers American people of Dutch descent MIT School of Engineering alumni People from Orem, Utah Princeton University faculty Stanford University alumni University of Utah alumni 20th-century American writers Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Fellow Members of the IEEE Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science IEEE Centennial Medal laureates Engineering educators Fellows of the American Society for Engineering Education 20th-century American male writers Silicon Valley people