Page 50 - Winter 2008

Leon H. Sibul
30 August 1932—19 February 2007
Leon H. Sibul was born on 30 August
1932 in Voru, Estonia. In 1944, he fled
Estonia in advance of the Russian occupa-
tion to a refugee camp in Augsburg,
Germany where he attended high school.
In 1949, he emigrated to the U.S., serving
as an electronic and radio technician in
the US Air Force from 1953 until 1957,
and later served in Korea. After military
service, Leon attended George
Washington University and graduated in
1960 with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical
Engineering. From 1960 until 1964 he
worked at Bell Labs, and while there, he
earned a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering from New York University. In 1964, Leon was hired by Penn State University’s Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) as a Research Assistant in the Sonar Guidance and Control Department. In 1968, he earned his Ph.D. from the University’s Electrical Engineering Department. While at ARL he conducted fundamental and applied signal process- ing research for undersea sonar systems and other Navy applications making major contributions to adaptive beam- forming and cross-spectral sidelobe cancellation. Leon and his colleagues explored signal processing concepts, includ- ing the estimator–correlator, high resolution signal design, wideband acoustic processing and wavelet transform appli- cations. It was said of Leon that “he is the model of intellec- tual activity, openness, and achievement for our researchers and our sponsors. He works with both undergraduate and
graduate students, advancing the capabili- ties of our technical staff, and continuing to advance the state-of-the-art. I never underestimate the importance of his tech- nical contributions, the atmosphere for creative thinking that he fosters, his hon- esty and well thought-out responses to dif- ficult questions, and the importance of his role model for what ARL personnel should aspire to achieve.” Leon retired in February 2002 after 38 years at ARL. During his long and productive career, Leon authored or co-authored 53 technical papers in ref- ereed journals, and he wrote or con- tributed to more than a hundred confer- ence papers. He edited a book entitled Adaptive Signal Processing published by
IEEE Press in 1987, and he wrote chapters in six other books. He was a frequent invited speaker at Acoustical Society meetings. Leon was a Fellow of the ASA and a Life Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). A colleague summed up Leon with the statement “Not only was it impressive how smart Leon was, but it was also impressive to see how his level of energy never waned. He worked all day, played basketball or jogged during lunch breaks for much of his life, and worked even after he retired, to the point of taking on a new project: setting up a signal processing course in Estonia. He did this for the love of his homeland, his love for signal processing, and his love for seeing the excitement people felt when they learned some- thing new. He was truly amazing.”
R. Lee Culver
We have learned of the deaths of the following ASA members:
Charles R. Barker Steven F Clifford James F. Curtis Stanley Flatté Russell Johnson Michael J. Kodaras William Kroll Oliver E. Rodgers
48 Acoustics Today, January 2008