Gould, who received his SB and ScD from MIT in 1948 and 1953 respectively, became a member of the MIT faculty in 1953 and retired in 1997. His research interests included control problems and dynamic modeling in industrial systems (chemical, nuclear, electrical power and rotating machinery), sampled-data control systems, adaptive estimation and the time series analysis of financial data.
Gould worked through the 1940s and ’50s in the area of process control as applied to the solution of chemical control problems. His book, “Chemical Process Control,” was published in 1969. As associate director of the Electronic Systems Laboratory (ESL), previously known as the MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory, from 1971 to 1976, Gould continued his interest in advanced feedback-control theory. Under Gould’s leadership, the ESL provided a new cooperative focus on research and education between staff and students from MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and his group in electrical engineering.
Gould was a fellow of the IEEE since 1973. As a frequent consultant to industry on a wide range of control applications, Gould published many technical articles in that field.
James K. Roberge, was a professor of electrical engineering and a member of the MIT faculty since 1967.
Born in Jersey City, N.J., in 1938, Roberge went to MIT in 1956, earning his SB, SM, and ScD degrees, all in electrical engineering. For nearly all of his professional career, Roberge worked for MIT — from postdoc to full professor, a position he attained in 1976. Starting in 1969, Roberge also performed research as a visiting scientist at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory.
At Lincoln Lab, Roberge’s research interests in the areas of electronic circuits and systems design led him to work in a division involved in space communications, instrumentation, and optical communications. His designs have flown on nine satellites.
Vincent Chan headed the division at Lincoln Lab in which Roberge worked. Chan says that Roberge’s most important contributions were in ultrahigh-efficiency power converters for spacecraft and high-precision optical tracking electronics for space-laser communications.
“[Roberge] brought together his knowledge of circuit designs, control system theory, and a large dose of ingenuity to design these systems,” Chan notes. Despite the fact that some of Roberge’s work was done in the 1980s and 1990s, Chan says, “it still represents the state of the art.”
