We were saddened to learn that Velio (Val) Marsocci died recently at the age of 88. He was a Professor Emeritus at Stony Brook University. He was well known to members of the IEEE Long Island Section for serving as the Section Chair in 1988 and many years of service on the Section’s Awards Committee. He received our Section’s prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014 “for distinguished contributions to engineering education and a lifetime dedication to IEEE activities”. He received the IEEE Millennium Medal in 2000. Val was a long time dedicated faculty adviser to the Stony Brook IEEE Student Chapter. Our Section Executive Committee has renamed its Outstanding Student Grant Award to the Velio Marsocci Outstanding Student Branch Award in his honor.
He received an Engineering Science Doctor’s degree in 1964 from New York University and had been teaching at Stevens Institute advancing to Associate Professor. He joined the newly formed EE Department of SUNY Stony Brook in 1965, became a full Professor including spin-orbit interaction in single-crystal ferrimagnetic thin films and super conducting linear amplifiers. He was a Professional Engineer and a member of several engineering honor societies.
Marjineh Issapour, a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology at Farmingdale State College and the First Vice-Chair of our Section, shares her memories of Val with us:
“I have had the honor of being professor Marsocci’s student in the Electrical Engineering department at Stony Brook University 1981-1985. He was my mentor and advisor in the department. I was one of three female students in his “Op-Amp” course. He was not only a great educator but also had a great ability of motivating his students to be the best they can be. He made me feel very comfortable as a female in the field dominated by me. He is one the reasons that I persisted in engineering and graduated with the highest GPA in my class. I owe much of my success as an engineer and an educator to him as a role model.”
Through his service on our Awards Committee, my wife and I got to know Val and his wife, Frances as friends. I always admired his high ethical and engineering standards that he brought to bear when evaluating candidates for awards. He set a good example for us all.
