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Josef Singer, former Technion president, dies

November 15, 2009

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Josef Singer, former president of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, has died.

Singer, who was one of the founding faculty members and former dean of the university’s faculty of aerospace engineering, died Nov. 12 in Israel. He was 86.

He served as Technion president from 1982 to 1986, and has been an active professor emeritus since 1991. Singer won the Israel Prize in 2000 for his lifetime of work in the field of aeronautical engineering.

Singer was known for his expertise in “buckling,” the study of how various materials give way under pressure.

One of the Technion’s longest-serving faculty members, he joined the university staff in 1955 and was responsible for establishing what has become a world-class structures laboratory at the faculty of aerospace engineering.

He was awarded honorary doctorates by the University of Glasgow and the Universite D’aix Marseilles. His academic appointments included positions at the California Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Stanford University, the University of California at Los Angeles and the Imperial College in London.

Born in Vienna in 1923, Singer immigrated with his family to Haifa at the age of 10. He served three years as a pilot with Britain’s Royal Air Force during World War II, then went on to study mechanical and aeronautical engineering at the Imperial College.

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