Dr. Francisc C. Schwarz, 69
Professor and Consultant
A memorial service was conducted at 1 PM on Friday the 24th in
Lincoln for Dr. Francisc. C. Schwarz, who died on Monday, February
20, at the Newton-Wellesley Nursing Home.
Born in Cernauti, Romania, on February 22, 1914, he received
his undergraduate education in electrical engineering at the Delft
University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands, his M.S.E.E.
degree from Columbia University, New York, NY, in 1956, and his
Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Cornell University,
Ithaca, NY, in 1965.
Dr. Schwarz contributed to the early phases of magnetics
semiconductor hybrid technology as an independent consulting
engineer in New York, and as a consulting electrical engineer at
the Advanced Electronics Center of the General Electric Company at
Cornell University until 1965.
He then joined the NASA Electronics Research Center, Cambridge,
MA, and organized the Power Systems Laboratory as its Chief. He
performed and directed ERC's research in the area of power
electronics for air and spacecraft, including nonorthodox
processes of energy conversion, systems analysis processing, and
components of power electronics. He was a member of the Advisory
Committee for NASA's Research on electric power and chairman of
the Power Conditioning Panel of the Interagency Advanced Power
Group of concerned U.S. Government agencies.
In 1971, he was appointed the position of Ordinary Professor
and later voted Chairman of the newly established Laboratory for
Power Electronics at the Delft University of Technology. His
primary activity was modernization of electrical power engineering
by application and extension of control and system theory to the
field of solid-state power electronics. The results of his work on
efficient multikilowatt a.c. and d.c. converters employing
multikilowatt a.c. and d.c. converters employing multikilohertz
frequencies, are contained in numerous U.S. and foreign
publications and patents.
Dr. Schwarz was also a consultant and contractor for the U.S.
Government. In June, 1983, Dr. Schwarz received the
IEEE William E. Newell Power Electronics Award for Outstanding
Achievement in Power Electronics.