{"id":92121,"date":"2019-12-13T11:41:05","date_gmt":"2019-12-13T15:41:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?p=92121"},"modified":"2022-10-21T16:55:25","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T20:55:25","slug":"former-ece-professor-anton-mavretic-mourned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/2019\/12\/13\/former-ece-professor-anton-mavretic-mourned\/","title":{"rendered":"Former ECE Professor Anton Mavretic Mourned"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Emily Wade<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Professor Anton \u201cTony\u201d Mavretic (ECE), a gifted faculty member in the College of Engineering and research associate with Boston University\u2019s Center for Space Physics, died on November 21 at the age of 84.
\nMavretic came to BU in 1979 and joined the full-time faculty as an associate professor in 1980. During his time with the department, he taught courses such as Modern Active Circuit Design, Analog VLSI Design, and Electronics I and II.
\n\u201cWe were a nascent department back then, and Tony shepherded our electronics department through the early years,\u201d recalled Professor Mark Horenstein (ECE). \u201cI recall that one of his students often referred to him as \u2018the God of electronics,\u2019 and he knew his stuff. I learned a lot from just working with him.\u201d
\nMavretic was well regarded by students, receiving the Outstanding Professor of the Year award in 1981. In a 2011 interview, alumnus Mark Tubinis (EE \u201981) observed, \u201cHis humor and generous sharing of his time helped me to achieve a lot at BU.\u201d
\nHorenstein attributed Mavretic\u2019s rapport with students to his experience in the field: \u201cTony had a very practical orientation because he came from industry\u2014He was an engineer through and through, and he brought his understanding of engineering to the classroom.\u201d
\nBefore joining the BU faculty, Mavretic worked in industry and research, and was a project engineer at MIT\u2019s Center for Space Research where his group developed the Plasma Science Experiment (PLS) for NASA\u2019s Voyager spacecrafts, work that was recognized by NASA with a group achievement award in 1981. The impacts of his work with the Voyager mission are still being felt today.
\nProfessor Josh Semeter (ECE), director of BU\u2019s Center for Space Physics, said \u201cThe PLS continues to provide new data and new discoveries 42 years later, as Voyager 2 leaves the heliosphere and enters interstellar space.\u201d
\nAfter 15 years on the ECE faculty, Mavretic left BU in 1995 to take an opportunity in the semiconductor industry, but returned 10 years later as a research associate in the Center for Space Physics working with Professor Emeritus Ted Fritz (ECE). During that time Professor Ron Knepper (ECE) remembered that his colleague continued to be an extremely knowledgeable and committed mentor.
\nHe recalled, \u201cI was mentoring a PhD student on his design of a MIROC chip in IBM 7WL technology, and Anton Mavretic used to come to our weekly meetings. His circuit design experience was invaluable in helping students in their PhD research work and circuit design work.\u201d
\nMavretic was also lauded in his native Slovenia. He was made a lifetime member of Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2007 and received the Silver Order of Service in 2015 for his extraordinary contribution to science.
\nMavretic\u2019s drive to mentor students never wavered. Near the end of his life, he was still working with engineering professors and students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. As he reflected back on his colleague, Professor Horenstein recalled one of Mavretic\u2019s favorite sayings: \u201cIt\u2019s not good enough to understand the subject theoretically\u2014you have to sweat it out on the bench.\u201d<\/p>\n

A funeral Mass was held for Professor Mavretic November 27, 2019 at Good Shepherd Parish in Wayland. He is survived by his wife, two daughters, and four grandchildren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Professor Anton \u201cTony\u201d Mavretic (ECE), a gifted faculty member in the College of Engineering and research associate with Boston University\u2019s Center for Space Physics, died on November 21 at the age of 84.
\nMavretic came to BU in 1979 and joined the full-time faculty as an associate professor in 1980. During his time with the department, he taught courses such as Modern Active Circuit Design, Analog VLSI Design, and Electronics I and II.
\n\u201cWe were a nascent department back then, and Tony shepherded our electronics department through the early years,\u201d recalled Professor Mark Horenstein (ECE). \u201cI recall that one of his students often referred to him as \u2018the God of electronics,\u2019 and he knew his stuff. I learned a lot from just working with him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2322,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92121"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2322"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131410,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92121\/revisions\/131410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}