In Memoriam for Engineering Educator Lyle Feisel

Lyle Feisel, an influential engineering educator and devoted IEEE volunteer, died on 5 November on the age of 90.

Feisel was a professor of electrical engineering and the founding dean of the Watson engineering school on the State University of New York, Binghamton. He established its organizational construction, tutorial applications, and tradition. He additionally employed the vast majority of its school.

For greater than six a long time, the Life Fellow helped outline IEEE’s long-term strategy to schooling and professional development. He served in key management roles for IEEE Educational Activities, the IEEE History Committee, the IEEE Life Members Committee, and the IEEE Foundation.

“Lyle Feisel’s ardour, compassion, and thoughtfulness have been an inspiration to everybody who knew him,” says Karen Galuchie, the IEEE Basis’s government director. “I really feel privileged to have recognized him. The IEEE group was lucky to have such a devoted and caring chief.”

Early profession highlights

Feisel served within the U.S. Navy from 1954 to 1958 as a radio operator—which sparked his curiosity in electronics and communications. After his energetic obligation ended, he earned bachelor’s, grasp’s, and doctoral levels in electrical engineering from Iowa State University, in Ames.

In 1964 he joined the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, in Speedy Metropolis, as a researcher and professor {of electrical} engineering. He taught there for 20 years.

Feisel’s analysis centered on thin-film supplies, together with tin-oxide movies. He pursued early solar-cell analysis throughout a time when photovoltaics have been nonetheless a distinct segment experimental area. He supervised quite a few undergraduate and graduate college students and wrote an undergraduate curriculum that emphasised design tasks and laboratory work.

By the late Seventies, Feisel was promoted to move of the EE division, the place he helped replace curriculum, recruit school, and develop analysis applications.

Constructing an establishment from the bottom up

Feisel left South Dakota Mines in 1983 to affix SUNY Binghamton (now Binghamton College). That very same 12 months he based the college’s Watson engineering faculty (now the Watson College of Engineering and Applied Science). He served as dean till his retirement in 2001.

In a 2023 interview about his profession with the college’s newspaper, Feisel recalled that the varsity was “consistently rising and altering.”

“Yearly, new applications have been added,” he mentioned. “If you happen to have a look at the variety of levels in 1983 and the quantity we had in 2001, there’s no comparability in any respect.”

Feisel acknowledged the significance of interdisciplinary applications amongst EE, mechanical engineering, laptop science, and industrial engineering to create new programs. He emphasised hands-on laboratory work and business partnerships to raised put together college students for his or her careers.

“Dean Feisel got here on the proper time, to the proper place, and introduced collectively all the parts essential to create excellent tutorial applications and to draw school who excel of their fields,” Michael McGoff wrote in a tribute revealed on SUNY-Binghamton’s web site. McGoff served as assistant dean and affiliate dean underneath Feisel for 17 years.

“With out his imaginative and prescient,” McGoff mentioned, “there wouldn’t be a Watson Faculty as we speak.”

Intensive management throughout IEEE

Feisel devoted a long time to management and repair throughout IEEE, particularly in roles that formed academic coverage, historic preservation, and member engagement.

He was a longstanding member of the IEEE Education Society, serving as its 1978–1979 president.

As vice chairman of IEEE Educational Activities from 2000 to 2003, he performed a central function in shaping applications that supported engineering school, college students, and practitioners worldwide. He helped information IEEE’s strategic plans for accreditation, continuing education, and the growth of digital studying assets.

“Lyle Feisel’s ardour, compassion, and thoughtfulness have been an inspiration to everybody who knew him.” —Karen Galuchie

“IEEE is extremely blessed to have volunteers, like Lyle, who passionately work on behalf of the mission of our group,” says Jamie Moesch, managing director of IEEE Educational Activities.

Feisel additionally was concerned with ABET, the group answerable for accrediting engineering applications. Within the late Nineteen Eighties he served on the Engineering Accreditation Fee, ABET’s major physique answerable for setting accreditation standards and overseeing analysis processes. IEEE is a founding member of the group.

Schooling wasn’t Feisel’s solely ardour. He served as 2006 chair of the IEEE Life Members Committee, which helps these a minimum of 65 years outdated who’ve been members lengthy sufficient in order that their age and years of membership equal or exceed 100.

He was a member of the IEEE Foundation board of administrators and the 2012—2013 chair of the IEEE History Committee. Whereas chair, Feisel proposed making a multimedia-based historical past program for younger folks, which developed to the IEEE REACH Program. It gives preuniversity historical past academics free entry to educational resources so college students can discover engineering and know-how and the way they affect society.

“Lyle exemplified the kind of long-term, engaged, energetic volunteer that makes IEEE be IEEE,” says Michael Geselowitz, senior director of the IEEE History Center.

A legacy of generosity

Feisel was acknowledged as a “Forever Generous” donor by the IEEE Basis for his sustained help of scholarships, pupil applications, and academic initiatives. He and his spouse, Dorothy, are members of the IEEE Goldsmith Legacy League, which acknowledges IEEE members who’ve included the IEEE Basis of their property plans.

“The important operate of the IEEE Basis—or any charity—is that it allows you to assist accomplish a purpose that you might by no means obtain by your self,” Feisel mentioned in a current interview with the Basis. “Appearing alone, we may by no means put a lady by means of highschool in Guatemala, educate a category in New Jersey concerning the history of engineering, illuminate a light-weight bulb in Haiti, or take a child for a trip on a duplicate crusing ship.

“By giving to the IEEE Basis and different charities,” he mentioned, “we’re in a position to assist do all of these issues.”