CENG associate dean Sullivan loses brief battle with cancer

Edward Sullivan, associate dean of engineering for research and graduate programs, died Monday from complications relating to cancer. He was 64.

“Ed was an outstanding scholar, teacher and humanist,” said Daniel Walsh, associate dean for the College of Engineering. “He was a calm voice at the center of every storm. He fought a very brief and unfair battle with cancer.”

Sullivan came to Cal Poly in 1989. Apart from his duties as dean, he taught transportation engineering classes emphasizing traffic analysis and modeling, evaluation methods and traffic collision modeling.

“Ed Sullivan was a great member of the university community. During his long tenure at Cal Poly, he contributed so much, as a mentor, teacher, scholar and valued colleague,” said Cal Poly President Warren Baker.

“He will be sorely missed and our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.”

Sullivan received both his bachelor’s and master’s degree in civil engineering from M.I.T. and his Ph.D in transportation engineering from UC Berkeley.

Before coming to Cal Poly, Sullivan worked as a research engineer and professor at UC Berkeley’s Institute of Transportation Studies for 18 years. He won numerous awards for his work in transportation engineering and in 1997, he won the ASCE Urban Transportation Division’s “Best Paper” award for an article he published in “Journal of Transportation Engineering.”

In 2001, Sullivan was honored with Cal Poly’s Litton Award for excellence in research and development. Sullivan was again awarded “Best Paper” in 2005 by the Transportation Research Board Committee on Safety Data, Analysis and Evaluation.

“Ed was a great scholar and a true gentleman in every way,” said Mohammad Noori, dean of the College of Engineering in a prepared statement. “I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with Ed for over three years. Ed was a very kind person who was always willing to give his time and knowledge to help others.”

Sullivan is survived by his wife, Donna and his two daughters. A memorial service in his honor will be held at the Marshall Spoo Sunset Funeral Chapel in Grover Beach Saturday, Feb. 21 at 10:00 a.m.

“Ed’s departure is indeed a tragic loss to all of us who knew him,” Noori said. “Although we have lost his physical presence, we did not lose him as a role model in our lives.”