Subrata Kumar Chakrabarti 1941—2009

Subrata Kumar Chakrabarti In this occasion of remembrance of our friend Subrata, first we extend our sincerest condolences to his wife Prakriti, daughter Sumita, son Prabal and granddaughter Sajni. Like his family, his friends and colleagues in the OMAE community are deeply shaken by this great loss. He was kind, considerate, friendly, but his hallmark was a great smile, and his greatest virtue was his humility. He possessed a keen love to teach and to share his shining intellect, and we are so blessed to have had the opportunity to serve with such a cordial human. He inspired us by setting a great example how to serve our profession by loving and working with people of different origins, religions, and cultures. He loved his native Bengali culture, music, and the works of the Bengali poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. Subrata received his B.S. degree in 1963 from Jadavpur University (India) and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in 1965 and 1968 from the University of Colorado. He had a 20-year career at Chicago Bridge & Iron (CBI) in Plainfield (Illinois) as Director of Marine Research, followed by a career in consulting and a member of the College of Engineering faculty at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He lectured at many universities, has written 7 books on offshore engineering, numerical modeling in fluid-structure interaction, hydrodynamics and vibrations, and authored over 125 refereed and over 75 conference papers. He gave an enormous amount of his time and energy to our profession by organizing international conference series such as the OMAE Offshore Symposia. His participation on numerous editorial boards included service as: Technical Editor, America, Applied Ocean Research, Elsevier, 1998-2009. Associate Editor, Ocean Engineering, Elsevier, since 2006. Technical Editor, JOMAE/ASME, 1986-1996. Co-Editor, Proc., Fluid-Structure Interaction, WIT, vol. I, 2001, vol. II, 2003. Associate Editor, Applied Ocean Research, Elsevier, 1991-1998. Associate Editor, Journal of Energy Resources Technology, ASME, 1984-1986. Editorial Board Member, Topics in Engineering, CML Publications, 1987. Editorial Board Member, Applied Ocean Research, 1982-1991. Editorial Board Member, Marine Structures Journal, 1988-1991. Co-Editor, Proceedings, OMAE, ASME, 1985-2004. Publication Committee Member, WPCOE, ASCE, 1978-1984. Member, Editorial Board, Advances in Fluid Mech. Series, 1993-2008. He was "Fellow" of the American Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. His awards included: James Croes Medal, ASCE, 1974  Freeman Scholar, ASCE, 1979  Outstanding New Citizen, Chicago, 1981  Ralph James Award, ASME, 1984  OMAE Achievement Awards, 1988, 1990, 1991  OMAE Distinguished Services Award, 1998  ASME Life-time Achievement Award, 2005    We take comfort in his works and our memories as we will miss Subrata. In the words of Subrata's admired Tagore: "Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come." Zeki Demirbilek, Denby Morrison and Cengiz Ertekin