参考文献: F.-Y. Wang, “In Memory of Wolter J. Fabrycky: A pioneer of systems engineering and US-Sino academic exchange,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 839–840, May 2025.

In Memory of Wolter J. Fabrycky: A Pioneer 

of Systems Engineering and US-Sino Academic Exchange

Fei-Yue Wang

The passing of Professor Wolter “Wolt” Fabrycky, an outstanding member and great leader, is a big loss to our international systems engineering professional community. “Wolt was a legend in the systems engineering community with his teaching, advising, and dissemination of knowledge through the books he authored.”, as stated by Professor Eileen Aken, a former student of Wolt and the head of the Virginia Tech’s Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineeirng where Wolt had served and led for 30 years and retired as John L. Lawrence Professor emeritus. 

I came to know Wolt in late 1990s through INCOSE and IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society (SMCS), but our direct contact was in 2000s through the meetings arranged by Professor A. Terry Bahill, my colleague and mentor at the Systems and Industrial Engineering Department of the University of Arizona. UA’s SIE, with the original name as the Department of Systems Engineering before the middle of 1970s, was the first university department in SE in the world, and I learnt from Wolt that, at Virginia Tech, he had founded and chaired the SE graduate program since the middle 1960s, one of the first of its kind. 

Fig. 1. Wolt Fabrycky at Beijing’s Commemoration for H.S. Tsien’s 100th Anniversary, Nov. 2011.

Our meeting at Beijing in 2004 has greatly extended our personal relationship and friendship. Wolt told he was the one who had identified me as the potential candidate for the USA Delegate of the People to People Ambassador Programs to IEEE SMC 1987 in China while I was still a research staff member at the Robotics and Automation Laboratory at RPI, and starting my PhD. program for computer and systems engineering at EECS Department. I had almost forgot this, and recalled that the invitation letter was actually issued and signed by Professor Ernest Smerdon, the dean of UA’s College of Engineering and Mines in 1980s, and I became a faculty member of his SIE department and the director of Robotics and Automation Laboratory in 1990.

Wolt was a member of US Education Delegate to China in the middle 1970s, and evaluated China’s higher education and promoted US-China collaboration in education ever since. Wolt also told me that he and his sister, Elizabeth, were fans of Professor H.S. Tsien and collected many materials about him. H.S. Tsien, or Xuesen Qian, Co-founder of NASA JPL and one of America’s leading experts in rockets and highspeed flight mechanics, also the the author of Engineering Cybernetics in 1954, initiated China’s space program and became one of the founding fathers of China’s “Two Bombs, One Satellite” program after ending his tenure as a professor at Caltech in 1955. H.S. Tsien is also the Founding President of our Chinese Association of Automation (CAA) for 20 years since its creation in 1961.

Wolt and Elizabeth had helped me tremendously in preparing the materials for the nomination of H.S. Tsien for INCOSE Pioneer Award 2009 and received the award posthumously in 2011 for Tsien’s 100th Anniversary. At November that year, Wolt came to Beijing and presented his keynote address at the Commemoration for H.S. Tsien’s 100th Anniversary, a special program organized by Chinese Automation Congress (CAC) and CAA.

Wolt has asked me to be involved in his effort of creating the Omega Alpha Association as the International Systems Engineering Honor Society, and I had served as its Charter Board member and helped him in launching the Systems Engineering Doctoral Dissertation Showcase program, as well as its effort of trying to establish the Best or Top 10 Systems Engineering Graduate Programs.

Fig. 2. With Wolt’s help, Fei-Yue Wang received H.S. 

Tsien’s INCOSE Pioneer Award on the behalf of Tsien’s Family in 2011 at Denver, CO, USA.

Wolt has dedicated his professional life to Systems Engineering, and set up a great example for promoting international academic collaboration, and of developing technology for advancing our humanity. 

We will continue Wolt’s effort for service to professional community and international academic cooperation, and remember his contributions!