Andrew Conn working with mechanical engineering design students in 2002. IMAGE: WILL KIRK / HOMEWOODPHOTO.JHU.EDU
The Mechanical Engineering Department is sad to report the passing of Andrew F. Conn BS ’57, PhD ’64. Conn, a retired senior lecturer who played a pivotal role in creating and expanding the senior design course that is the department’s capstone undergraduate design experience, died on Friday, Nov. 6.
He was a leading expert in the development of high-pressure water-jets for industrial applications. He worked for Sweetheart Cup as an engineer before joining Howard County research and development firm Hydronautics Inc.
In 1988, Conn was recruited to come to the Whiting School of Engineering as an adjunct professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering by then-department chair, William Sharpe, a former graduate school classmate.
Conn developed and taught a new Capstone Senior Design Class, in which teams of 3 to 4 students designed and built a prototype for industrial sponsors. Not only did he teach the course, but he also arranged for industrial sponsorship of each project. According to colleagues, he especially enjoyed meeting weekly with each team and its members and personally guiding their development. Conn was known as an “engineer’s engineer” with consummate skill in design engineering and design pedagogy. He was beloved by students and colleagues.
Andrew Douglas, vice dean for faculty at the Whiting School of Engineering, credits Conn for “professionalizing the senior design experience.”
“Dr. Conn was a real go-getter who was excellent at bringing in impressive Senior Design sponsors, from places doing defense work to others doing biomedical projects, all of whom provided our students with important experiences working on real-world engineering problems,” Douglas remembered.
Conn retired from Hopkins in 2012, but continued to volunteer with V-LINC, a Senior Design sponsor and Baltimore-based non-profit that aims to create technological solutions to improve the lives of people with disabilities. In 2014, he was named V-LINC’s volunteer of the year.
He was predeceased by his wife Elinor “Ellie” Conn (nee Schwartzman), and is survived by his wife, Barbara Taylor, his sons Lawrence (Barbara) Conn and David (Amanda) Conn, and their children.
Services were held Nov. 8.