Arthur Winston2004 IEEE president, died on 27 December at the age of 94.
Winston was an electrical engineering professor at two Boston-area universities: Northeastern and Tufts. He cofounded the latter’s Gordon Institutea leadership-focused engineering school.
Among the students and colleagues whose careers he helped shape is IEEE Fellow Karen Panettadean of graduate engineering education at Tufts.
“Arthur was my role model and mentor,” Panetta says. “I am honored that I have become exactly what he ‘architected’ in his blueprints for me and the countless others he has mentored.
“Arthur’s life mission and efforts were never solely about engineering technologies. It was about mutual respect for all people and the inclusion of all individuals through collaboration.”
Contributions to education and scholarly research through IEEE
Winston, an IEEE Life Fellow, made important contributions to engineering education through his work with IEEE Educational Activities. He served on its board as 1999 vice president, helping to expand its programs to include preuniversity students and educators. He later led the board’s preuniversity education coordinating committeewhich helps individuals and organizations working with children to implement science, technology, engineering, and mathematics activities.
Winston was a key contributor to TryEngineeringan IEEE Educational Activities program. TryEngineering empowers educators to foster the next generation of technology innovators through free, online access to culturally relevant, developmentally appropriate, and educationally sound instructional resources for teachers and community volunteers.
Work with Boeing and NASA
Winston earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics at the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in nuclear physics in 1954 from WITH.
Arthur Winston and IEEE Fellow Karen Panetta at Tufts University in Medford, while celebrating her induction into the National Academy of Engineering in March.Karen Panetta
He began his career as an engineer at Schlumberger (now known as SLB), an oil field services company based in Houston. He worked there for three years.
He then became an engineering manager at several organizations including the National Resource Corp. (now NRC Health) and Allied Market Researchin Wilmington, Del.
An expert in the fields of instrumentation and measurement, he was a serial entrepreneur, according to an article about him in IEEE-USA InSight. He founded two startups to develop his two most prominent innovations: a heat shield reentry temperature measurement system for NASA’s Apollo program and a global nuclear test monitoring system for the U.S. government, as he described in his oral history.
A passionate educator and mentor
While maintaining his career in industry, Winston found time to teach. Beginning in the 1970s, he was a visiting associate professor at Northeastern. In the 1980s, he worked with philanthropist Bernard Gordonan IEEE Fellow, to establish the Gordon Institute. In 1986 the institute merged with Tufts. Winston served as its director from 1986 to 2007. He oversaw its engineering management master’s degree and entrepreneurial leadership programs. He also developed advanced technology and engineering courses and taught classes on emerging technology, product design and development, project planning, and management science.
He received a 2007 National Academy of Engineering Gordon Prize for “developing a multidisciplinary graduate program for engineering professionals who have the potential and the desire to be engineering leaders.”
From 1997 to 2000 Winston served on the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that evaluates programs in the applied sciences, engineering, computing, and technology. He was also on the board of directors of the United Engineering Foundationwhich provides grants for education. IEEE is one of the UEF founding societies.
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