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- From Philadelphia Inquirer:
Joseph F. Pizzirusso, 79, of Springfield, Delaware County, a professor of engineering and inventor, died of cancer Saturday at Chester County Hospital.
In 1967, Professor Pizzirusso became an instructor at Pennsylvania Military College - now Widener University. He retired from Widener in 2004 as a full professor. While teaching, he was also a consultant to corporations including Foamex and Scott Paper Co., and held several patents.
In the 1990s, he helped develop an air-filtration system for the Defense Department to prevent sand from clogging the engines of Black Hawk helicopters deployed in deserts. Thirty years earlier, he designed a nuclear submarine heat-exchange unit for the Atomic Energy Commission.
"He was a 'super genius,' " his daughter Diane Hoover said, but chose teaching over a lucrative full-time engineering career. At Widener he tutored students who were having difficulties with course work; at his grandson's elementary school in Chadds Ford, he volunteered to supervise hands-on science projects; and at schools in Chester he spoke to students about expanding their goals.
Professor Pizzirusso grew up in New York. He earned a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. He and his wife, Rose Furnari Pizzirusso, spent their courtship in the New York Public Library while he researched his thesis. They married in 1952. From 1954 to 1963 he was an associate professor at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in New York. He had also taught at Pennsylvania State University and Delaware County Community College.
His daughter said he was fascinated with how things worked and enjoyed home repair and improvement projects as well as gardening and painting.
In addition to his wife and daughter, Professor Pizzirusso is survived by another daughter, Lynnore Compton; sons Joseph G. and Douglas; a brother; and five grandchildren.
A Funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. today at St. Dorothy Church, 4910 Township Line Rd., Drexel Hill. Friends may call from 9:30 to 10:45 a.m. at Ruffenach Funeral Home, Township Line and Burmont Roads. Burial will be in SS. Peter and Paul Cemetery, Marple Township.
Contact staff writer Sally A. Downey at 215-854-2913 or sdowney@phillynews.com.
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Jennifer's Family History
1926 - 2006 (79 years)