George Arthur Rozgonyi

George Arthur Rozgonyi, son of the late Abel Rozgonyi and Mary Csaby Rozgonyi, died from multiple medical adversities on Monday, November 24, 2014, at Rex Hospital. He was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., graduated from St. Peters Preparatory School in Jersey City, N.J., and received his B.S. and M.A. degrees from the University of Notre Dame and his Ph.D. degree from the University of Arizona. After a distinguished 19-year career at AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J., he joined the Materials Science and Engineering faculty at N.C. State University, Raleigh, in 1982. During his career he spent sabbaticals at the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, at C.N.E.T. in Grenoble, France, and at several universities in South Africa. In the semiconductor field he published more than 400 papers and presented numerous invited lectures at international conferences. He has been responsible for advances that have played an important role in the development of integrated circuits, solar cells, and light-emitting diodes, all of which are in everyday use today. He served on the Executive Committee, Electronics Division, of the Electrochemical Society and won numerous awards during his career, including the Electrochemical Society Award for “advancing our fundamental understanding of defects in semiconductor device processing,” and was selected as Fellow of the Electrochemical Society and IBM Faculty Scholar. He was founding director of two National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers, the Silicon Wafer Engineering and Defect Studies (SiWEDS) center and the Silicon Solar Consortium (SiSoC), which supported collaborative research between faculty at eight universities and 27 industrial sponsor. He was particularly proud of the success achieved by the numerous graduate students and post-doctoral researchers from around the world whom he taught and mentored, many who now occupy senior roles in industry and academia. He is survived by his wife of 51 years, Norrish Munson Rozgonyi, and his three daughters and their families: Amy Coppedge of Raleigh and daughters Emma and Lily; Suzanne Eaton (Greg) of Forest, Virginia, and daughters Isabel and Annalise; Jennifer Kowing (Ben) of Bettendorf, Iowa, and children Sam and Sarah. A visitation from 6:00-8:00 p.m. on Monday, December 1st, will be held at Bryan-Lee Funeral Home, 831 Wake Forest Rd., Raleigh. Funeral services will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 2nd, at Sacred Heart Cathedral, Raleigh, with burial following in Oakwood Cemetery. George and Norrish were staunch supporters of the Arts, particularly NY City Ballet and Carolina Ballet. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made in Georges name to Carolina Ballet at 3401-131 Atlantic Ave., Raleigh, NC, 27604; at 919-747-8457; or at www.carolinaballet.com. “Goodnight, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”