December 17, 2007
Computer engineer Marc Feldman dies
jonathan.sherwood@rochester.edu
Marc Feldman
Marc Feldman, a professor and scientist in the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, died December 4, at age
62, after a brief battle with lung cancer.
Feldman joined the University in 1989. Throughout
his career, Feldman made landmark contributions to the field of
superconductivity, including early work on superconducting tunnel junction
devices, which led to the internationally accepted standard measure of the
volt, and to sensitive radio telescope receivers now widely employed by
astronomers to detect faint radio waves from deep space.
As the leader of the University’s
Superconducting Electronics Laboratory, Feldman led a number of major
projects to explore advanced computing concepts. Along with his colleagues,
he originated the idea for superconducting quantum computers, which are now
being developed in more than 20 major research centers worldwide.
Most recently, Feldman led an effort to develop
“ballistic transistors”—room temperature electronic
devices that showed promise to become the building blocks for a future
generation of ultra-fast, low-energy computers.
Feldman earned his doctorate in physics from the
University of California at Berkeley and spent time at Chalmers University
in Gothenburg, Sweden, and at the NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies
in New York City before joining the Department of Electrical Engineering at
the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Feldman, a resident of Brighton, is survived by his
wife, Susan, and sons Lucas and Benjamin. Donations in his memory may
be made to the Palliative Care Program at the Medical Center, 4-1200
Unit, 601 Elmwood Ave., Rochester, 14642.
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