It is with great regret and sadness that we share the news of the death of our friend and colleague, Professor Emeritus John F. Dorsey. Dr. Dorsey passed away on Friday, January 24 at his home in Greensboro, Ga. from complications associated with leukemia. He was 71 years old.

Born in Kalamazoo, Mich. on April 1, 1942, Dr. Dorsey received the B.A. degree from Purdue University in 1964 in Creative Writing, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Systems Science from Michigan State University in 1969 and 1980, respectively. He served honorably in Vietnam as a Navy officer aboard the carrier Valley Forge and later as a member of the Beach Jumpers.

Dr. Dorsey taught in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at the Georgia Institute of Technology for 30 years, before retiring in 2010 and earning the title of Professor Emeritus. Among the more recent courses he taught were ECE 2040 Circuit Analysis, ECE 3085 Linear Systems, ECE 4551 Principles of Feedback Control, and ECE 6551 Digital Control, as well as ECE Senior Design. He was devoted to giving the students an extremely clear and complete exposition of the technical subject, punctuated with colorful and entertaining stories from his varied experiences. His scholarly contributions include numerous papers on topics ranging from robotics to large scale power systems, the textbook entitled Continuous and Discrete Control Systems with CD-ROM (McGraw-Hill, 2001), and the development of several instructional laboratories at Georgia Tech. During his career at Georgia Tech, he supervised one postdoctoral fellow and graduated 12 Ph.D. students and 11 master’s students.

Dr. Dorsey won the Richard M. Bass/Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teacher Award in the School of ECE in 2007-08; this honor was determined by a majority vote of the ECE senior class. He was also a Senior Member of IEEE.

He was married to Mary Ann (Ingram) Weitnauer from 1984-2011 and is survived by his sons, James Edward Dorsey and Andrew Thomas Dorsey, and his siblings, Jackie Benton, Barbara Gunger, and Thomas Dorsey.

Memorial Service Information (Updated January 31)

A memorial service for ECE Professor Emeritus John F. Dorsey will be held at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, February 11 at the chapel of A.S. Turner and Sons, 2773 N. Decatur Road, Decatur, Ga. 30033, (404) 292-1551. The family will receive friends at the funeral home one hour prior to, as well as just after the service.