Ted Van Duzer

Theodore Van Duzer (December 27, 1927 – October 24, 2023) was an American electrical engineer and Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, where he served on the faculty from 1961 to 2014.^[1] He was internationally recognized as a pioneer in superconducting digital electronics and was the founding editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity.^[2][3] The IEEE Van Duzer Prize, awarded annually for the best contributed paper published in the journal, is named in his honor.^[4]

Van Duzer was born on December 27, 1927, in Piscataway Township, New Jersey, and graduated from Dunellen High School.^[5] At age 17 he joined the United States Navy as a radio technician during World War II, an experience he credited with starting his career in electrical engineering.^[2] With assistance from the G.I. Bill, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree at Rutgers University and, while working at Hughes, a Master of Science degree at the University of California, Los Angeles.^[2] He completed a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 1960, working on microwave vacuum tubes under John R. Whinnery.^[5][4]

Van Duzer joined the faculty of Berkeley's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in 1961 and remained there for over five decades, becoming Professor Emeritus upon his retirement in 2014.^[1][6] Early in his career he held a postdoctoral fellowship in Vienna and later served as an exchange professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, where he helped initiate research on lasers.^[5]

After the discovery of the Josephson effect in the early 1960s, Van Duzer redirected his research toward superconducting electronics, a field in which he remained active until 2012.^[7] His research focused on Josephson devices and multi-gigahertz digital superconductor circuits, including hybrid circuits combining superconducting and cryogenic semiconductor components.^[4]

In 1987, Van Duzer was a co-founder of Conductus, a Sunnyvale, California–based company that developed commercial applications of superconducting electronics.^[2][1] He was the founding editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity and was an active contributor to the IEEE Council on Superconductivity and the Applied Superconductivity Conference.^[3][2]

Van Duzer co-authored two textbooks:

• Ramo, Simon; Whinnery, John R.; Van Duzer, Theodore (1994). Fields and Waves in Communication Electronics (3rd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-58551-0.^[6]
• Van Duzer, Theodore; Turner, Charles W. (1998). Principles of Superconductive Devices and Circuits (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR. ISBN 978-0-13-262742-9.^[8]

• Elected member of the National Academy of Engineering, 1997^[6]
• IEEE Life Fellow (Fellow 1977, Life Fellow 1993)^[4]
• IEEE Council on Superconductivity Award for Continuing and Significant Contributions in the Field of Applied Superconductivity, 2000^[6]
• The IEEE Van Duzer Prize, awarded annually for the best contributed paper published in the IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity, was established in his honor.^[4]
• The Ted Van Duzer Endowed Professorship at UC Berkeley's College of Engineering, which supports a promising non-tenured faculty member, is named for him.^[9]

Van Duzer met his wife, Janice Lee Dakin, at the First Presbyterian Church in Corpus Christi, Texas, before attending university; the couple were married for 68 years until her death in 2018.^[10] In 2015, after fifty years in the San Francisco Bay Area, they relocated to Eureka, California.^[10] He published a memoir, The Life and Times of Ted Van Duzer, in 2022.^[10]

Van Duzer died in his sleep on October 24, 2023, in Eureka, at the age of 95.^[1][10] He was survived by three children, five grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.^[10]

• Faculty homepage at UC Berkeley EECS
• 2014 oral history interview at the Engineering and Technology History Wiki