Roger W. Brockett, 1938-2023

ISR founding and permanent faculty member Roger Ware Brockett passed away March 19, 2023, after suffering a series of cardiac events. He had been hospitalized since October 2022 after sustaining serious injuries in a fall. Born Oct. 22, 1938, Brockett was 84 at the time of his death.

Brockett was the youngest of seven children of Roger Lawrence Brockett and Grace Esther (Patch) Brockett. He grew up on a farm in Seville, Ohio, where hard work, self-sufficiency, and stoicism were everyday virtues. In 1960, he married Carolann Riske, whom he had met in eighth grade, and who survives him. He also is survived by his son, Douglas of Menlo Park, Calif., Douglas's wife, Rei (Chen); and their children, Roger Jensen, Jane, and Helen; his son, Erik of New York City; his daughter-in-law, Louise (Brewster) Brockett of New York City; and her children, William, John, Thomas, and Roger Ware, II; as well as his brother, Richard, of Garrettsville, Ohio, and his wife, Mary Ann (Ross). Brockett’s eldest son, Mark, of New York City, predeceased him.

Career and honors

Upon earning his PhD from Case Western Reserve University, Brockett began his academic career at MIT. After six years, he joined Harvard University, where he taught from 1969 to 2011 and was the An Wang Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. Brockett founded the Harvard Robotics Laboratory in 1983. Upon his retirement, he became a Professor Emeritus at Harvard.

He advised 62 doctoral candidates, many of whom became leading professors. His students included two of ISR’s founding faculty, Distinguished University Professor John S. Baras (ECE/ISR) and Professor P. S. Krishnaprasad (ECE/ISR).

Baras called Brockett a “giant” who “left a huge and lasting impact” in electrical engineering, control and robotics.

“The freedom of thought that Roger exemplified was something he strongly encouraged in all his students,” Krishnaprasad noted. “The value he placed on this and the cultivation of taste in research has served me well all these years. I remain most grateful to Roger for these and other lessons.”

Brockett guest-taught at universities around the globe. He authored or co-authored several hundred scholarly papers. His textbook, Finite Dimensional Linear Systems, is considered a classic. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of IEEE, and received dozens of awards and honors including the Donald P. Eckman Award, the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, the IEEE Control Systems Science and Engineering Award, the Rufus Oldenburger Medal, and the Giorgio Quazza Medal for lifetime achievement.

“We will all miss Roger very much as a teacher, mentor, friend, a visionary person that inspired so many, and for his generous and optimistic personality,” Baras said.

What Roger Brockett meant to me as teacher, mentor, and friend

By P. S. Krishnaprasad

Sifting through impressions and understanding evolved over nearly five decades, the enduring image of Roger for me is that of a free spirit. He was the least stuck person I have known. He navigated the landscape of his curiosity with both delight and discipline. I learned to appreciate this dynamism foremost.

When I arrived at Harvard in spring 1974, I did not know Roger or his scientific work. He was on leave, it was his Guggenheim Fellowship year, but he came to the Aiken Computation Lab regularly to see his graduate students. As I had a desk in the office his students shared, I was privy to some of the enthusiastic discussions Roger had with John Baillieul and Kuo Chiou on Lie algebras and J-indefinite spaces. Soon the magic of his use of geometric and topological thinking drew me in, and sometime later, I became his student. He gave me a problem to work on that gave free rein to my abilities and pushed me well beyond.

The freedom of thought that Roger exemplified, was something he strongly encouraged in all his students. The value he placed on this and the cultivation of taste in research has served me well all these years. I remain most grateful to Roger for these and other lessons.

My remembrances of Roger Brockett

By John Baras

Roger Brockett was a great scientist, engineer, teacher, visionary thinker and trend setting pioneer. Above all he was a friendly, open, accessible, optimistic and supportive person.

From my very first days at Harvard I was impressed and I appreciated immensely his openness and accessibility. His willingness to sit down and discuss new ideas and problems, even ones appearing “crazy” or “impossible,” was unmatched. I still remember very fondly the start of the day whereby after “Good morning” he would ask “what problem or theorem are you working on today?” I have kept my notes from our meetings and his courses, and have often revisited them to find new ideas or new thinking about challenging problems.

His optimism, encouragement and curiosity were evident throughout his celebrated career, and were the main reason why so many people were inspired and mentored by him.

Roger was one of the last remaining polymaths. He persistently and fluently linked ideas and concepts from physics, chemistry, engineering, systems, control, optimization, biology, computational models and complexity, and quantum mechanics. A few seminal and famous examples are his introduction of Lie algebras in nonlinear systems, his breakthrough contributions to efficient matrix multiplication, his unexpected demonstration of solving combinatorial problems via analog computation, his deep work connecting stochastic control with key aspects of thermodynamics, his novel time optimal control of NMR spin systems. This unique characteristic is evidenced from the great diversity of challenging problems addressed by his many very successful students.

Another unique characteristic of Roger’s work was his balanced love for foundational theory and practical engineering implementation (“gadgetry”). A great example of the former is his classic textbook Finite Dimensional Linear Systems, and of the latter his innovative soft-fingered robotic hand and the founding of the Harvard Robotics Lab.

It was such a joy to work with him and enjoy this exchange of ideas without traditional disciplinary boundaries. Roger embraced with tremendous enthusiasm the effort to establish the Systems Research Center, now our Institute for Systems Research (ISR), jointly between the University of Maryland and Harvard. Since 1984 he worked tirelessly for its establishment and evolution, and contributed substantially to its research and educational accomplishments.

From a certain perspective—and given that several UMD faculty who were involved in the founding and development of ISR were his students—ISR could be considered a natural outgrowth of his visionary and cross-disciplinary thinking and ideas, including the key and foundational concepts emanating from “systems and control thinking and methodology.”

Roger was also a fun person to be with in social occasions, ranging from making ice cream in his backyard, to playing basketball and soccer, to student-faculty parties.

Personally, Roger had a major impact and influence on my education, thinking and career. There are two “research culture” characteristics that Roger taught me and that have stayed with me. First, to be “fearless” when addressing new and challenging research problems. Second, to appreciate and seek “simple and elegant solutions,” a manifestation of his profound love for the “aesthetic beauty” of the correct mathematics for a problem. His influence, legacy and teachings will stay with us forever. He will be missed by many and especially by us, his ISR colleagues.