Lasting Memories

Kosuke Ishii
1958-March 2, 2009
Los Altos, California

Kosuke Ishii, 51, a Stanford University professor of mechanical engineering, died March 2 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Gatos. His death was the result of internal hemorrhaging from burst blood vessels in his esophagus.

He was the director of the Manufacturing Modeling Laboratory (MML) and was interested in improving the design and manufacturability of products ranging from airplanes to water pumps.

"Kos made strong connections with all the people who worked with him and learned from him," MML lab member and doctoral student Whitfield Fowler said. "Personally, Kos helped to shape the opportunities that I will have for the rest of my life."

He was born in Japan and attended high school in Sydney, Australia, where his father was employed. He earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Sophia University in Tokyo in 1980 and earned a master's degree two years later at Stanford. He also earned a master's degree in engineering from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. He worked as a control and systems design engineer at Toshiba in Tokyo before returning to Stanford to complete a doctorate in mechanical engineering in 1987. He then taught at Ohio State University from 1988 to 1994 before joining the Stanford faculty.

He was best known at Stanford for a course he taught for 15 years where graduate students work directly with industry partners to take on a real-world design problem.

He is survived by his wife, Naomi, of Los Altos; sister, Akemi Iida, father, Tsuneharu, and mother, Masue, all of whom live in Japan.