UC Berkeley Web Feature

Richard Newton, UC Berkeley engineering dean and technology visionary, dies at 55

By Sarah Yang, Media Relations | 2 January 2007

BERKELEY – A. Richard Newton, professor and dean of the College of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, a pioneer in integrated circuit design and electronic systems architecture, and a visionary leader in the technology industry, has died. He was 55.

A. Richard Newton (Bart Nagel photo)

Newton died today (Tuesday, Jan. 2) at the UC San Francisco Medical Center of pancreatic cancer.

Newton was known as a passionate advocate for the use of technology to tackle some of society's most difficult challenges, particularly those in developing nations. He was the driving force behind the founding of the UC Berkeley-based Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), one of four California Institutes for Science and Innovation established in 2001 to develop the next generation of technologies that will be critical to sustaining California's economic growth and global competitiveness.

"Rich Newton was a man of incomparable vision," said UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. "Dynamic and entrepreneurial, he understood the power of engineering and technology in entirely new ways, and he connected it to addressing society's toughest problems. The vibrancy of his thinking shaped my own ideas about what engineering is and what it can be. This is an enormous loss for us at UC Berkeley, for California, and indeed for the international engineering community."

A full obituary will be posted soon on the UC Berkeley NewsCenter.