SUSSKIND, Charles 1921-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born August 19, 1921, in Prague, Czechoslovakia; died of complications from Alzheimer's disease June 15, 2004, in Berkeley, CA. Engineer, educator, and author. Susskind, an electrical engineer who became interested in the effects of technology on health, helped found the department of bioengineering at the University of California at Berkeley and was also cofounder of the San Francisco Press. Still a teenager when Germany invaded his homeland in 1939, he escaped to England, where he eventually joined the U.S. Army Air Corps as a radar specialist. After marrying in 1945, he immigrated to the United States, became a citizen, and earned a B.S. from the California Institute of Technology in 1948; he then attended Yale University, where he received a master's degree in engineering in 1949 and a doctorate in 1951. During the early 1950s, Susskind taught at Stanford University, joining the University of California, Berkeley faculty in 1955 as an assistant professor. He became a full professor of engineering science in 1964. From 1964 to 1968, he served as dean of the engineering college, and from 1969 to 1974 he was responsible for coordinating academics throughout the University of California system. Returning to teaching, Susskind continued on as a professor until his retirement in 1991. Susskind's interest in how people's health may be affected by technology began in the 1960s, when he started studying how microwaves impact living tissues. This led to his work on the interrelationship between biology and engineering, and with colleague Irving Fatt he created the first courses at UC Berkeley in bioengineering. Fatt and Suskind's work eventually led to the creation of the Joint UC Berkeley/UC San Francisco Graduate Group in Bioengineering in 1982 and the 1999 founding of the Department of Bioengineering. His concern for the potentially hazardous effects of technology on health influenced his 1973 book, Understanding Technology, in which he composed a type of Hippocratic Oath for engineers for which these scientists pledge not to use their skills to harm people or the environment in any way. Another accomplishment came in 1959, when Susskind founded San Francisco Press with his wife. Here he served, among other tasks, as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Electronics, published in 1962, with a second edition released in 1984. Susskind wrote, coauthored, or edited many other books about electronics and related topics, including Popov and the Beginnings of Radiotelegraphy (1962), Twenty-five Engineers and Inventors (1976), and Heinrich Hertz: A Short Life (1995).

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Los Angeles Times, June 26, 2004, p. B17.

San Francisco Chronicle, June 17, 2004, p. B6.

ONLINE

University of California, Berkeley Web site,http://www.berkeley.edu/ (June 24, 2004).