George A. Bekey

June 19, 1928 - October 17, 2024 Robotics pioneer, world religions scholar and beloved humanist George A. Bekey, Ph.D, has died in Los Angeles of complications of old age. He was 96.
A father of robotics, Dr. Bekey oversaw creation of the world's first four-legged walking machine in 1968 and co-developed the first humanoid, five-fingered robotic hand in the 1980s. He served on the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering faculty for 40 years, including as vice dean for research and chair of Electrical Engineering Systems, Computer Science, and Biomedical Engineering.
Dr. Bekey authored or co-authored more than a dozen books, including on robot ethics – of which he was an early proponent – and about 250 professional articles. He was an IEEE Fellow, recipient of numerous scientific honors, and a University Professor, USC's highest interdisciplinary honor. Many of his Ph.D. students have gone on to leadership roles at universities and the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He hired USC's first female engineering professor and advocated for many others.
Born in Bratislava, Slovakia (then Czechoslovakia) in 1928 to an engineer father and chemist mother, he grew up in Bratislava and Prague. In 1938, his secular Jewish family fled Prague with false papers on the last train after the Nazi invasion, escaping near-certain death when the conductor missed their row.
The family settled in La Paz, Bolivia, for five years before emigrating to California. Despite his heavily Spanish-accented English, Dr. Bekey quickly joined the high school debating team – characteristic of the optimism, curiosity and creative problem-solving for which he became known.
Dr. Bekey subsequently earned his bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. degrees at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and UC Berkeley, pausing to marry his treasured wife Shirley. He also nearly completed a world religions degree at USC and retained a lifelong interest in Buddhism, Hinduism and other wisdom traditions. Dr. Bekey avidly backpacked, did Chinese brush painting, and was a George-of-all-trades electrician and carpenter.
During ostensible retirement in his seventies and eighties, Dr. Bekey kept an office at USC, advised the College of Engineering at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and taught world religions. At USC, his devoted graduate students coalesced into the self-titled "Bekey Tribe" of individuals spanning 40 years.
He is survived by his son Ron (Ramona Holmes), daughter Michelle (Ron Fryer), brother Ivan (Marlene), and cousins, nephews and nieces. We are grateful to Belmont Village Westwood for dementia care during his last years. In Dr. Bekey's spirit of peace, cooperation and patience, kindly donate to TreePeople of Los Angeles.