Department of Mechanical & Nuclear Engineering Mourns the Loss of Dr. Bohdan Kulakowski

The Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering has suffered a tragic loss due to the loss of Professor Bohdan Kulakowski.  Dr. Kulakowski received his master’s degree from Warsaw Technical University and his Ph.D. from the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw.  Kulakowski started his career at Penn State as a senior Fulbright scholar in Mechanical Engineering in 1979, then became a Professor of Mechanical Engineering in 1982, from 1992 to 2003 he served as the Director of the Pennsylvania Transportation Institute (PTI).  He was a member of the Pi Tau Sigma mechanical engineering honor society, a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), the American Society for Testing and Materials, and was also the secretary of the International Forum for Road Transportation Technology.

Kulakowski's teaching at Penn State was highly regarded. During his time with the department Bohdan has received many awards including Penn State's George W. Atherton Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1998, Premier Teaching Award from Penn State Engineering Society in 1994, Department Head Faculty Award, Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering in 1991, and the Outstanding Teaching Award, Penn State Engineering Society in 1990. Bohdan's expertise was in automatic control systems, computer simulations and control of industrial processes, systems dynamics, vehicle and road dynamic interactions, and transportation systems.  Discovery Magazine featured an article on Bohdan's "fuzzy logic algorithm" in 2000, as one of its top ten innovations of the year.

He is survived by his wife, son, and daughter. 

A memorial mass will be held at Our Lady of Victory Church, 820 Westerly Parkway, on Monday, March 27, 2006, at 10:30 a.m. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests a donation to the Bohdan Kulakowski memorial scholarship, Bohdan Kulakowski Scholarship Fund, Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, 137 Reber Building, University Park, PA 16802.

We would like to collect your thoughts and remembrances of Dr. Kulakowski. If you would like to contribute to the on-line memorial page please submit your name and a brief statement in remembrance of Dr. Kulakowski to Dr. H. J. Sommer III at hjs1@psu.edu.