Professor Desoer was born on Jan. 11, 1926, in Brussels, Belgium. During the German occupation of Belgium in World War II, he fought with the Belgium Resistance and, following the liberation, joined the Belgium Army. He obtained a radio engineer degree from the University of Liege in 1949 and then moved to the United States, where he earned a Sc.D. in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953. In 1976, the University of Liege awarded him an honorary Sc.D.

In 1953, he began his career at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, primarily working in the field of network theory. He left there in 1958, joining the faculty at UC Berkeley as a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences. He continued to serve the campus as professor emeritus after his retirement in 1993.

Professor Desoer’s work contributed to substantial progress in the analysis, design and control of linear and nonlinear circuits and systems. These advances led to the burgeoning growth of control applications and benefited the aerospace, transportation, process control and other essential sectors of industry.

His series of seminal textbooks in circuits and control systems are widely regarded as classics in the field and have set a high standard for their clarity of thought and presentation, as well as a deep commitment to intellectual elegance.

Professor Desoer passed away in 2010.

Selected Publications

• C. A. Desoer and E. S. Kuh, Basic Circuit Theory, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1969.
• L. A. Zadeh and C. A. Desoer, Linear System Theory: The State Space Approach, W. Linvill, L. A. Zadeh, and G. Dantzia, Eds., McGraw-Hill Series in System Science, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1963.

Awards, Memberships and Fellowships

• IEEE Gustav Robert Kirchhoff Award, 2011
• IEEE CASS 2000 Millennium Medal, 2000
• IEEE CASS Mac E. Van Valkenburg Award, 1996
• Berkeley Citation, 1991
• IEEE Control Systems Award, 1986
• John R. Ragazzini Education Award, 1983
• American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow, 1982
• National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Member, 1977
• IEEE James H. Mulligan Education Medal, 1975
• Prix George Montefiore, 1975
• UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award, 1971
• Médaille de l'Université de Liège, 1970
• Guggenheim Fellow, 1970

Obituary courtesy of Berkeley Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences