MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science EECS Great Educators

If there were a Pantheon for electrical engineers, a statue of Professor Guillemin would most certainly be enshrined there, for he was revered by a generation of students. He dedicated his entire career to developing and refining the art and science of linear network analysis and synthesis, thereby enriching the heritage of the electrical engineering profession.

A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Professor Guillemin was graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1922 with a B.S. degree in electrical engineering. He received the S.M. degree in electrical engineering at MIT two years later, after which he studied at the University of Munich, Germany, for a doctor's degree which he received in 1926. Upon his return to MIT he taught subjects in electric power networks and power system stability.

A major turning point in his career came in 1928 when he was invited by Professor Edward L. Bowles, another of the department's great educators, to assist in the development of a communications option for undergraduate students. Professor Guillemin accepted the challenge with great enthusiasm, starting out by revising and expanding a subject that included communication transmission lines, telephone repeaters, balancing networks and filter theory. From there he began a life-long career of developing and refining the teaching of what he called linear, lumped, finite, passive, bilateral networks.

He published a total of six textbooks on various aspects of network analysis and synthesis, a book every four or five years (except during the Second World War, when as a consultant to the Radiation Laboratory he developed networks for radar systems). His two volumes on Communication Networks, published in 1931 and 1935, are considered classics. In addition to his books he authored over forty technical papers and supervised well over one hundred theses.

But quantity alone does not portray adequately his greatness as an educator. He continually refined his lectures in order to make them more interesting to his students. The prefaces to his textbooks, written in his characteristically crystal-clear, satiny-smooth style, are a delight to read, and they reveal his philosophy of education and teaching. In his 1953 book Introductory Circuit Theory, he wrote, "linear, passive, lumped, finite, bilateral circuit theory is the electrical engineer's bread and butter. [The student] needs to know this subject before he tackles any of the other subjects in the curriculum." However, he insisted that the subject must be taught in a way that will provide the student "with basic concepts and ways of thinking that will not become obsolete throughout the rest of his undergraduate and graduate years."

His goal was to blur and even eliminate the line between advanced and elementary methods of analysis. In his 1953 book he also wrote, "We refer to things being advanced only so long as we understand them insufficiently ourselves to be able to make them clear in simple terms." It is little wonder, then, that he was teaching about poles and zeros to sophomores when this concept was considered graduate-level material in most universities.

Professor Guillemin's contributions have been recognized internationally by a succession of honors and awards. Among his honors was the President's Certificate of Merit for outstanding contributions to the war effort. He was an elected fellow in the British Royal Society of Arts, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE), and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). In 1961 he received the IRE's highest award -- The Medal of Honor -- and then one year later the AIEE's Education Medal for "inspirational and intellectual leadership in the revolutionary change in engineering education."

In 1960 he was honored by being appointed the first Edwin Sibley Webster Professor, a title which he held until his retirement in 1963. Professor Guillemin died in 1970, a few weeks short of his seventy-second birthday.

During his career, Professor Guillemin's genius influenced a host of undergraduate and graduate students, many of whom went on to be scholars in their own right and to play top leadership roles in industry and universities. He was deeply dedicated to his students, and they to him, so much so that they often referred to him as "the father of linear network theory" and as the one who had had the greatest influence on their careers.