ANDREW EMERY SAMUEL
Professorial Fellow, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Australia
September 14, 1934 (Ujpest) – December 3, 2007 (Melbourne)
Professor Andrew Samuel, a pioneer of engineering design research, prolific author and respected educator, passed away on December 3 2007.
Andrew was born in turbulent times in Hungary on September 14, 1934 to a middle class family. In 1944, as a ten year old, he demonstrated his courage and strong will by not wearing the yellow star decreed to identify all Jewish citizens. For twelve months, he lived among strangers and survived that which took the lives of so many. His mother and older brother both perished in Auschwitz.
He came to Australia with his father to start a new life in 1949. Very quickly, Andrew exhibited his high intelligence, quickly gaining a lifelong mastery of the English language in addition to his earlier fluency in German and his native Hungarian. His obvious practical skills led to a trade apprenticeship with the General Motors (Holden)automotive company in Melbourne and Andrew became an expert toolmaker. However, his keen intellect and questing mind were not satisfied: he studied at night school and won a scholarship to the University of Melbourne where he graduated Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) with honours in 1959.
In the 1960’s, his career combined graduate research with practical experience in industry. During the five years from 1963 to 1967, Andrew held responsible design/project engineer positions at Altona Petrochemicals, Massey Ferguson and Australian Paper Manufacturers. He gained his Master’s degree in 1963 in the field of Fluid Mechanics and his Ph.D. followed in 1973, studying “The Development of Turbulent Boundary Layers in Adverse Pressure Gradients.” This latter thesis provided benchmark data for many later theoretical and experimental investigations. Andrew’s thesis had been passed by the examiners twelve months earlier, but he delayed acceptance of the degree until his wife, Eva, had also passed her examination and was ready to receive her Ph.D. (in chemistry). The award of Ph.D.’s to husband and wife at the same ceremony was a unique and significant event, both for the Samuel family
and for the university community in Melbourne.
Andrew returned to the University of Melbourne as a lecturer in 1969, and quickly entered into an ongoing and productive partnership with Dr. William (Bill) Lewis in the field of engineering design.
His unique combination of talents finely honed practical and experimental skills, together with a highly developed capacity for creative, abstract thought established him as a leader in his chosen area of academic expertise. Andrew’s record in teaching, research, and innovative industry/university programmes led to his promotion to senior lecturer (1974), reader (1989), and professor (2002).
In the 1980’s, Andrew established and, until his retirement led, an important and successful research programme in Kinematic Design and Robotics. He formed a productive academic relationship with the late Kenneth Hunt and was consistently successful in attracting high quality researchers and in attracting research funding from industry and from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the national researchfunding
agency. In 1995, Andrew was awarded the degree of Doctor of Engineering by examination for his thesis titled, “Significant Publications in Engineering Design, Robot Kinematics and Engineering Education.” This rare honour marked a significant achievement, as the University of Melbourne has awarded only 15 higher doctorates of this type in the past 100 years.
Andrew was an active member of the Australian National Committee for the Theory of Machines and Mechanisms from the 1980s and chaired the committee between 1999 and 2003.
Andrew was a stalwart of the biennial International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED) . Either he or a close colleague from the Melbourne Design Group has attended every ICED conference but one since their inauguration in 1981. His contribution culminated in ICED 05 when, due to his vision, initiative and careful preparation, the Design Society accepted the Melbourne bid for the 2005 conference. This was the first ICED conference to be held in the southern hemisphere and only the
second not to be held in Europe. All who attended that conference will recall his calm but very effective
chairing of meetings and of the conference dinner, but only those close to him at the time were aware of the prodigious effort and the mindnumbing work load he cheerfully accepted to ensure the success of the conference.
With such a major undertaking as ICED 05 behind him, one might think that Andrew would retire into a relaxed and comfortable life style. But nothing could be further from the truth. Andrew’s intense personal drive and his desire to meet and overcome every challenge were unabated. As such, two textbooks followed, the first on Make and Test Projects in Engineering Design (2006), the second on Forensic Engineering (2007), both published by Springer. In the last year of his life, Andrew also completed a substantial family history, ensuring that his children and grandchildren have, for posterity, a
clear idea of their family’s background, extending back to its 19th century roots in Eastern Europe. As well, he produced two momentous volumes on 30 years of his travel experiences, including 2,000 pictures, a testament to his photographic skills.
Andrew was both diverse and prolific. He was the author or coauthor of four textbooks on engineering design and forensic engineering; and editor of proceedings of two international conferences on engineering design and one national conference on machines and mechanisms. Andrew published 42 refereed articles in international journals and 60 refereed conference papers on topics in a range of diverse fields: engineering design research, engineering education and design education, kinematic
design and robotics, manufacturing engineering, operations research and technology management, and fluid mechanics and energy systems. Andrew secured over $1.5 million from research agencies, governments and industry, a significant amount in the context of Australian universities in the latter part of the 20th century. Andrew also supervised nine Ph.D. students (all now pursuing productive careers in
Australia and the US) and ten Master of Engineering Science degrees.
To give some balance to our story and to emphasise the qualitative side of Andrew’s achievements, we could do no better than quote one of his former students, now a leading researcher in the UK, who has written, “He [Andrew] was a great enthusiast and an inspiration for all his students”.
Andrew’s life outside the university was also very full. With his wife and family, he was a keen skier and traveller for many years, as long as his health allowed. He and Eva enjoyed (or should one say, “survived!”) enduring partnerships on the golf course and at the bridge table. He was able to enjoy competitive bridge till the last week of his life. He was a passionate listener of both Jazz and classical music, a prolific reader, and lover of Australian timber, from which he designed and hand built almost
all the furniture in his home. Many university friends were fortunate enough to attend the Samuels’ Christmas barbecues, where cheerful hospitality and a great spirit of academic camaraderie were the order of the day.
Throughout his academic career, Andrew emphasised scholarship and he never wavered in his commitment to the university ideal of advancing knowledge for the betterment of mankind. His oftrepeated mantra to postgraduate students was, “Aspire to scholarship!”
He deplored recent trends in Australia, trends perhaps reflecting events in other countries, where reducing government funding and micromanagement of academic affairs has had an increasingly intrusive and devastating effect on the personal autonomy of academic staff. Andrew Samuel’s life is a shining example of all that is best in universities.
Aware of his illness for the last five years, with severe discomfort over the past 12 months, he always maintained his dignity and courage. In the words of John Mortimer, one of his favourite authors, “The world will be an emptier colder, less friendly place without him.”
Andrew is survived by his wife, Eva their children, Debbie, Wayne and Fiona and their families, that now includes seven beautiful grandchildren.
Dr Bill Lewis Honorary Associate Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering School of Engineering The University of Melbourne
Dr Colin Burvill Senior Lecturer Department of Mechanical Engineering School of Engineering The
University of Melbourne
