Obituary

Leonardo de Albuquerque Cavalcanti, while supervising the termination of the trolley line for the second electrified section of the Paulista Railway, Brazil, the construction of which he had just completed, came in contact with a high-voltage line and was instantly killed. Born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, July 1, 1892, Mr. Cavalcanti´s early education was through the Bacheral in Science at Saint Louis College, Brazil. He next took a four years´ course in Civil Engineering at McKenzie College, Brazil, before coming to the United States to enter a three years´ post graduate course in the School of Electrical Engineering, Princeton University. In 1916, the Charles Ira Young medal for Electrical Research was awarded him. This was the year of his graduation from Princeton and for the thesis presented for his electrical engineering degree he chose the subject of investigation to determine the thermal and electrical conductivity separately, and also the ratio of the thermal to the electrical conductivity of pure Acheson graphite by the Kohlrausch method. In the summer of 1914, he joined the Western Electric Company at Cicero, Illinois, and for a year, before returning to his own country was with the Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co. of Pittsburgh. Upon his return to South America, he became assistant engineer for the Cia. Compineneira de Luz e Forca and later, in 1920, was asked by the superintendent of the Paulista Railway to take charge of a new electrification construction plant. It was here that he met his death. Mr. Cavalcanti became an Associate of the Institute in 1916, the year of his graduation from Princeton, and his activities in the profession seemed to promise much.