Thomas A. Lipo
Phone: 1938-2020
Memorial Resolution of the Faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison
On the Death of Professor Emeritus Thomas A. Lipo
An internationally-renowned giant in the field of electric power engineering, Thomas A. Lipo, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, died in Madison on May 8, 2020, after a battle with prostate cancer. Tom was an iconic pioneer in the field of electrical machines, power electronics, and machine drives, whose prolific 50-year career spanned nearly the complete history of modern solid-state adjustable-speed motor drives to the time of his passing. He was particularly distinguished by his remarkable creativity with new electric machine topologies which played a major role in the development of several important new classes of permanent magnet and reluctance-based machines widely used in commercial products today.
Tom Lipo was born on February 1, 1938, in Milwaukee, WI. He attended Marquette University, earning both B.S. and M.S. degrees in electrical engineering. He worked in training programs at Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co. in Milwaukee during both his undergraduate and master’s programs which helped him to develop his nascent interest in electrical power equipment and electric machines, in particular. It was during this period when Tom began mastering the use of analog computers to carry out machine analyses and simulations, providing him a solid foundation of computational skills that served him well during the coming years.
He completed his PhD degree in 1968 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the supervision
of Prof. Paul Krause. A member of his PhD committee was a young Prof. Donald Novotny who would later play a major role in Tom’s professional career by luring him back to Madison and then establishing a highly-productive academic partnership with him that yielded a rich legacy that lives on today. The title of Tom’s PhD thesis was “Lyapunov Stability Analysis of a Class of Variable Speed Drives”, a topic that foreshadowed the striking breadth of his career work extending from electric machines to drive control algorithms.
After completing his PhD degree, Tom joined the GE General Laboratory (later part of GE Corporate R&D) in Schenectady, NY, where he joined an elite group of electrical engineers who together laid much of the foundation for today’s field of solid-state power electronics and adjustable-speed motor drives. After honing his skills at GE for 10 years in the analysis of ac machines and drives and their simulation using analog computers, Tom left industry for academia in 1979 when he joined the faculty at Purdue University in a group led by Prof. Krause, who had left UW-Madison while Tom was at GE. Two years later, Tom completed the circle by returning to UW-Madison where he joined Prof. Donald Novotny to co-found the Wisconsin Electric Machines and Power Electronics Consortium (WEMPEC) in 1981. By virtue of their combined efforts, WEMPEC grew into a highly successful university-industry partnership that continues today as one of the most internationally-renowned
consortia in its field, with more than 60 member companies.
Tom Lipo, who co-directed WEMPEC for 28 years as the Grainger Professor of Power Electronics and Electrical Machines, was internationally renowned as a leading authority in the fusion of electric machines, power electronics, and drive control algorithms to form high-performance machine drives used in a wide range of industrial, commercial, and transportation applications. During his highly-productive 39-year career as a UW-Madison faculty member, he supervised more than 120 graduate students, authored more than 700 technical papers and 5 books, and earned more than 50 patents. His technical articles and books have collected more than 50,000 citations in the international technical literature. While Tom’s driving passion was research and innovation, the 5 books he wrote are all landmark textbooks that are still in use today at UW-Madison and other major universities around the world, representing a key cornerstone of his remarkable academic legacy.
During his long academic career, Tom exhibited a special affinity for international travel and collaborations with academic colleagues around the world. He played a major role in pioneering collaborations with faculty members at academic institutions in Japan during the 1970s and China during the 1980s that were mostly closed to the West until that time. These activities contributed significantly to opening doors that strengthened international cooperation in the power engineering field and brought large numbers of talented graduate students to UW-Madison to study and launch their professional careers in the US. He held limited-time academic appointments at several major universities outside the US during his career including Cambridge University in England and Hanyang University in South Korea. He also held a Research Professor position at Florida State University for the last 5 years of his life.
Tom Lipo was an IEEE Life Fellow whose prodigious academic achievements earned him an impressive array of international awards including election to the US National Academy of Engineering (Member), the Royal Academy of Engineering in Great Britain (Fellow), and the US National Academy of Inventors (Fellow). He received the IEEE Medal in Power Engineering in 2014, one of IEEE’s highest honors. His long list of other awards included the prestigious Hilldale Award at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, the Outstanding Achievement Award of the IEEE Industry Applications Society, the IEEE Nikola Tesla Technical Field Award, and the William E. Newell Award of the IEEE Power Electronics Society. He was actively involved in IEEE technical leadership activities for many years including service as President of the IEEE Industry Applications Society in 1994.
During his youth, Tom was a victim of poliomyelitis, like too many other young people in the United States at that time. He recovered, but the virus left him with permanent damage to his leg muscles which degraded his mobility throughout the rest of his life. However, this setback did not prevent him from aggressively pursuing a career in engineering and leading a very active and fulfilling professional and personal life. He married Christine Dunker in Milwaukee in 1964, and they spent 40 years together raising a family and traveling often to attend conferences and to visit other academic institutions around the world where Tom’s lectures were in high demand. They are survived by their four grown children, nine grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. Tom is also survived by his second wife, Sandra Naset Eimen. When not immersed in academic and family responsibilities, Tom pursued his passions for folk music, fine food, world travel, and fishing with friends and family. Tom Lipo led an extremely rich professional life that regularly crossed the boundaries between industry and academia in a uniquely productive way that touched the lives of thousands of students, engineers, and faculty colleagues. His impressive record of technical accomplishments represents a remarkable legacy that lives on today here at UW-Madison and around the world, influencing the academic studies and professional careers of new generations of power engineering students who begin their careers by following in his inspiring footsteps.
Memorial Committee
Thomas M. Jahns
Giri Venkataramanan
Susan Hagness
April 3, 2025
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