WERNER GOLDSMITH
1924-2003


     


Werner Goldsmith, Professor in the Graduate School, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Professor Emeritus in Bioengineering and a founding member of the Bioengineering Graduate Group, passed away on August 23, 2003.

He received a BSME from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1944, MSME from the University of Texas, Austin, in 1945 and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1949.

Dr. Goldsmith received numerous honors and awards, including a Guggenheim Fellow, 1953-1954; Fellow, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 1972; Lady Davis Fellow to the Technion, Haifa, Israel, 1986; Fellow, American Academy of Mechanics, 1990; and the Berkeley Citation, May 1995. Dr. Goldsmith was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering, 1989, affiliation in Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering, with Citation For Outstanding Research on Impact Phenomena in Solids, including Projectile Penetration, Rock Mechanics and Head and Neck Injuries. The May, 1994 issue of the International Journal of Impact Engineering is devoted to Werner Goldsmith in honor of his 70th birthday. A three-day symposium was held in his honor in 1975 by the AMD and Materials Divisions of ASME.

Dr. Goldsmith's research interests included impact, head and neck injuries; human protective devices; energy absorbing materials; dynamic properties of solids; vehicular collisions; biomechanics; projectile impact on targets; and sandwich plates. He was also a private consultant to industry, the legal profession and government, with over 300 separate cases in automobile collisions matters, biomechanics, protective devices, slip-fall cases and other dynamic loading problems.

He is survived by his wife, Penelope Goldsmith, daughters, Andrea (Arturo Salz) Goldsmith and Remy Margaretha Goldsmith, son, Stephen (Olena) Goldsmith, grandchildren, Michelle S. Goldsmith, Dimitry Pobyyvovk, Daniel Salz and Nicole Salz.

Donations in his memory may be made to the Berkeley Engineering Annual Fund, College of Engineering, Univ. of California, 208 McLaughlin Hall (1722), Berkeley, CA 94720-1722 or Bay Area Holocaust Oral History Project, P.O. Box 1597, Burlingame, CA 94011-1597.

UC Berkeley feature
College of Engineering feature
SF Gate feature
Los Angeles Times feature
New York Times feature
Oakland Tribune feature
Professor Goldsmith's web page
Mechanical Engineering at Berkeley: The First 125 Years, by Werner Goldsmith
Professor Goldsmith awarded honorary degree by the University of Patras in 2002


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