Pier Luigi Bargellini, a longtime faculty member in what was then the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at Penn, died on August 4, 2016. He was 102 years old.

A native of Florence, Italy, Dr. Bargellini attended school at the University of Florence and the Polytechnic University of Turin in the 1930s. He married Anna Cioni in 1941 and they were together until her death in 2015.

He worked as an engineer for the Allied Military government and operated a medium wave broadcasting station before earning a master’s degree in electrical engineering at Cornell University. In 1950, he was hired as an instructor at Penn’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering. He became assistant professor in 1951 and associate professor in 1957.

While at Penn, he also served as a consultant on electronics and communications for a number of American and Italian companies including RCA, GE, ItalCable and Alenia Marconi Systems. He left Penn in 1961 and worked for Aerospace Corporation until 1965, whereupon he returned to Penn as associate professor of electrical engineering. He resigned in 1970. He then worked as a senior scientist at Comsat Laboratories in Clarksburg, Maryland.

He was the recipient of two Columbus Gold Medals from the International Institute of Communications in Genoa, Italy. 

After his retirement, he and Anna moved to Tepoztlan, Morelos, Mexico in 2008.

He is survived by his children, Clara Camara (Gabriel), Angela Nielsen (Richard) and Leonard (Leslie Moldow); grandchildren, Lara Nielsen, Anna Nielsen, Gabriela Camara, Carlos Camara (Jenny) and Sylvia; and great-grandson, Lucas.