Thursday, February 16, 2017

#TBT - Late MU Engineering alum Naka's life a rich tapestry

F. Robert Naka went from a Japanese internment camp in World War II to a pioneer in the field of stealth technology. Photo courtesy of Mizzou Engineering. 

Back in February of 2014, I had the distinct privilege of writing an obituary of the extraordinary F. Robert Naka for MU Engineering's website and magazine.

Naka, who earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Missouri in 1945, died Dec. 21, 2013, in Concord, Mass. Between his birth July 18, 1923 in San Francisco and his last days in Massachusetts, he lived a highly eventful and interesting life, most notably known for his pioneering work on stealth technology, part of his longtime career developing high-altitude, minimally-observable aircraft for defense-related reconnaissance.

Naka came to MU by virtue of a handful of twists and turns in his younger years. He enrolled at UCLA at age 16 and studied there until 1942, when he was interred at Manzanar Relocation Center in California as part of the relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans by the U.S. government during World War II. He remained there for nine months before the efforts of the Quakers helped secure his release and the chance to continue his studies — provided they were at a university away from the west coast.
That’s where MU came in, and Naka graduated with his bachelor’s degree in 1945 before moving on to earn his master’s from the University of Minnesota two years later and a doctorate in electron optics from Harvard in 1951.
Read more about his incredible journey here

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