Memorial for Former ME Professor Vittorio Castelli: November 10, 2008
10/13/2008
Dr. Vittorio Castelli, former professor of the ME department
passed away on June 10, 2008.
A memorial service will be held on Monday, November 10, 2008 at St. Paul's Chapel on the Columbia University campus from 4:30-6:30 pm.
A reception will follow in the ME Department at 220 Mudd Building, 500 West 120th Street from 6:30-8:30pm.
Vittorio Castelli
April 8, 1934-June 10, 2008
Dr. Vittorio Castelli, 74, a former professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia University who was awarded more than 70 patents and wrote numerous technical papers, died on June 10, at Hudson Valley Hospital. Through his theoretical and practical proficiency in the fields of fluid dynamics, electromechanics, heat transfer, elasticity and machine design, he made important contributions to the development of computer information storage disks and tape memories, automobile airbags, a large radio-telescope, and color copiers and printers.
Dr. Castelli was a resident of Yorktown Heights, N.Y., and Rome, Italy. The cause of death was complications from ampullary cancer and chemotherapy.
Known as Rino (short for the diminutive “Vittorino”), Dr. Castelli was born in Rome on April 8, 1934. He was an outstanding student at the Liceo Scientifico (science high school) Augusto Righi, where one of his math teachers dubbed him “the young Lagrange,” after Joseph-Louis Lagrange, the famous Italian-born mathematician of the 18th century. Dr. Castelli was awarded an academic scholarship to the University of Rome, where he earned the equivalent of a B.S. degree in 1955. Throughout his school years, he was a competitive shot-putter, discus- and javelin-thrower.
Later in 1955, he traveled to New York City to visit his high school sweetheart, Agathe Nadai, who had immigrated with her family. He interviewed at Columbia’s School of Engineering, was accepted and enrolled, earning M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering in 1957 and 1962, respectively. He and Ms. Nadai were married in 1957; their daughter, Serena Regina Castelli, was born in 1960.
Dr. Castellli’s doctoral dissertation on instabilities in gas bearings laid much of the mathematical and technical groundwork for hard and floppy computer disks, which were in their early stages of development at the time. He rose through the ranks at Columbia from assistant professor, in 1962, to associate professor, in 1967, to full professor, in 1970. He served as chairman of the department from 1974 to 1978.
In the late 1950s, he designed one of the largest bearing systems ever built for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s 72-meter radio-telescope at the Goldstone Observatory in California’s Mojave Desert. This huge satellite dish received signals from deep space and also transmissions from the Apollo spacecraft. While at Columbia, he wrote a computer program to design air bearings for flying recording heads in hard disc drives, which became a standard tool for head and disc drive manufacturers around the world. Dr. Castelli also worked on inertial guidance gyroscopes; typewriters; high-speed spindles; rocket engine seal systems; and oil film-lubricated rock crushers.In 1978, he left Columbia to become a research fellow at the Xerox Corporation. In 1981, he was a co-founder of the Mechanical Engineering Sciences Laboratory (MESL), originally an offshoot of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y. At MESL, he and colleagues researched and developed color copiers and printers. In 1999, the year of his official retirement from the company, he received the Xerox President’s Award.
Dr. Castelli was a strong advocate of careful mechanical engineering research and analysis, as well as the use of computer simulation, in technical design; he was also a challenger of corporate barriers to research developments. He consulted with more than 50 major companies including Bell & Howell, Boeing, Honeywell, Hughes Aircraft, Hewlett Packard, Olivetti, Teledyne and TRW.
Recognizing his many professional milestones, the Columbia Engineering School Alumni Association awarded him its Egleston Medal for Distinguished Engineering Achievement in 2000, calling him an “engineering wizard, guru, advisor and sage.” In his latter years, he continued as an adjunct professor at Columbia and as a consultant.
Dr. Castelli defied the stereotypes of straight-laced engineer, socially awkward scientist and absent-minded professor. He was revered by students and professional colleagues, many of whom became personal friends for life, not only for his mathematical rigor, scientific insights and technical knowledge but also for his charisma, leadership and sense of humor.
The athleticism of his youth was transformed into a lifelong love of the outdoors. He was a gifted amateur mountain guide, leading friends and family on many expeditions in the U.S. and Europe. In the second half of his life, he developed a passion for canoeing, organizing annual trips on the St. John River in Maine and regular longer treks to remote areas of the Yukon Territories and Alaska. Other hobbies included surfing, windsurfing and skiing.
Dr. Castelli is survived by his long-time friend and companion of the past few years, Charlotte Zedeker; his former wife, Ms. Nadai; their daughter, Serena; a granddaughter, Kyra Castelli-Foley; and a stepson, Giovanni Battista Bertolani, by his second marriage to Giulietta Iannaccone Castelli, who predeceased him.
A wake was held Sunday, June 15, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at the Clark Funeral Home, 2104 Saw Mill River Road, Yorktown Heights.