John H. Milsum (August 15, 1925 – November 9, 2008) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

control engineer Control engineering or control systems engineering is an engineering discipline that deals with control systems, applying control theory to design equipment and systems with desired behaviors in control environments. The discipline of controls o ...

who was Professor and first Director at the Biomedical Engineering Department of the

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous ...

in Montreal, and a professor at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thre ...

. Milsum is known for his book "Biological Control Systems Analysis" from 1966, which is a classic in the field and has been translated into many languages.History of biomedical engineering at McGill
, Retrieved 25 April 2008.

Biography

Milsum was born in England. He received his Ph.D. in 1957 in

control engineering Control engineering or control systems engineering is an engineering discipline that deals with control systems, applying control theory to design equipment and systems with desired behaviors in control environments. The discipline of controls o ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. He started working at the

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in Ottawa from 1950 to 1961. In 1961 he came to McGill as the first Abitibi professor of

in the Department of Electrical Engineering. In 1972 Milsum moved to the

(UBC) to become the Imperial Oil professor of

General Systems ''General Systems: Yearbook of the Society for General Systems Research'', known as ''General Systems'', is the first annual journal in the field of systems science initiated in 1956, and initially edited by Ludwig von Bertalanffy and Anatol Rap ...

and a professor in the Department of Health Care and

Epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evide ...

. He was instrumental in the creation of UBC's Institute of Health Promotion Research in 1990. He was president of the

International Society for the Systems Sciences The International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) is a worldwide organization for systems sciences. The overall purpose of the ISSS is: :"to promote the development of conceptual frameworks based on general system theory, as well as their ...

in 1967-68. And he was a member of the National Research Council in Ottawa. In 1986, he was bestowed the honour of Emeritus Member of the Canadian Medical and Biological Engineering Society. Milsum died peacefully at home in 2008 November, at age 83.Memories of Dr. John H. Milsum
Accessed Feb 5, 2010.

Publications

* 1955. ''Preliminary investigation of transient cooling of aircraft electronic equipment using heat storage material''. with William G. Nance. * 1957. ''Problems in optimizing of stochastically-disturbed, saturating regulators, employing a binary error criterion''. Thesis Sc.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. * 1966. ''Biological Control Systems Analysis''. McGraw Hill * 1968. ''Positive Feedback''. (editor) Pergamon Press Ltd. * 1984. ''Health, stress, and illness : a systems approach''. New York : Praeger. Articles: * 1972, "The Hierarchical Basis for Living Systems," in

George J. Klir George Jiří Klir (April 22, 1932 – May 27, 2016) was a Czech-American computer scientist and professor of systems sciences at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York. Biography George Klir was born in 1932 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. ...

(ed.), ''Trends in General Systems Theory''. New York. 1972. * 1973, "On Optimization of Health Care Systems". in: ''Optimization Techniques'' 1973: 335-346 * 1973, "Hospital admission systems: their evaluation and management". with E. Turban and I. Vertinsky in: ''Management Science''. * 1985, "A model of the eustress system for health/illness". in: ''Behavioral Science''. Vol 30, Issue 4, Pages 179 - 186.

References

External links

History of biomedical engineering at McGill

{{DEFAULTSORT:Milsum, John 1924 births 2008 deaths Control theorists MIT School of Engineering alumni Canadian systems scientists University of British Columbia faculty McGill University faculty British emigrants to Canada British expatriates in the United States Presidents of the International Society for the Systems Sciences