The University of Wyoming has named a program to honor the late UW Professor Francis M. Long, who founded the nation's first accredited baccalaureate program in bioengineering.
The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Bioengineering Option degree program has been renamed to the Francis M. Long Bioengineering Program. The name change was approved by the UW Board of Trustees.
This Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET)-accredited program prepares students to design the next generation of medical diagnostic and therapeutic equipment, pursue graduate studies in biomedical engineering or attend medical school.
Long came to UW in 1956 as instructor of electrical engineering. He decided that bioengineering held much promise, and started what was to be the nation's first accredited biomedical engineering program.
Long was active in bioengineering professional circles and was a founding member of both the Rocky Mountain Bioengineering Symposium and the Biomedical Engineering Division of the American Society for Engineering Education. He received many awards, including the George Duke Humphrey Distinguished Faculty Award for his academic service and leadership on the UW campus. He died in January, 2007.
"Francis was my teacher, colleague, department head and a textbook collaborator," says former colleague Raymond Jacquot, professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering. "He had a profound influence on my career as one of my several mentors but most of all he was a valued friend. He was a true and complete scholar."
Jacquot says, "The laboratory will provide a new generation of students the ability to explore, in the experimental setting, the agreements and disagreements of engineering theory and practice."
