TCNJ

25 FALL 2023 challenging radio frequencies by bouncing signals off the moon. "I wanted to extend the frontier of communications," he says. The hobby became central to his identity, inspiring him to study electrical engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology. Katz believed he was aiming for a career centered on research and development until a stint as a graduate teaching assistant made him realize he wanted to work with students too. "A lot of the time in engineering, you're working on projects that take years to be fulfilled," he says. "But the nice thing about teaching is that every time you have a good class, there's this positive feeling." Chris Brinton '11 first encountered Katz during orientation his freshman year at TCNJ. "He was clearly very passionate about what he did," says Brinton. "I immediately felt like he was the main professor that was going to help me get where I wanted to go." Throughout his time at the college, Brinton took five of Katz's courses, and he worked with the professor on an independent study and his senior proj- ect, too. Katz's teaching style thrilled him: Rather than lecturing, Katz as- signed problems for students to solve and present in class, less interested in a recitation of facts than in a real-time demonstration of understanding. "He was teaching us how to be engi- neers," Brinton says. Katz didn't simply challenge students and then walk away, Brinton says; he invested in their success, leav- ing his office door open, letting them use Linearizer offices to pursue their own eureka moments, and fielding phone calls late into the night. "You could literally call his cell phone anytime you had a question — and he would answer," says Brinton, now assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. "I do the same thing with my students now. That's something I learned from him." Katz's achievements are recognized far beyond TCNJ's community. In 1976, he became the first amateur ra- dio operator to make contact with all seven continents at a radio frequency (432 MHz) that requires bouncing a signal from the Earth to the moon and back again. He is an expert in micro- wave engineering, an inventor who holds 17 patents, and a recipient of the American Astronautical Society's prestigious William Randolph Lovelace II Award for outstanding contributions to space science and technology. "He's incredibly well known world- wide," says Roger Dorval '91, now a vice president and general manager at Macom. Dorval joined Linearizer Tech- nology as part-owner and vice president of engineering in 1993. It was soon after, on a trip with Katz to the 1994 International Microwave Symposium in San Diego, that he realized the extent of his former professor's reputation throughout the industry. "As Al and I were walking into the convention center, it was 'Hi Al. Hi Al. Hi Dr. Katz,'" Dorval says. "It was really eye-opening for me. I'm in awe of this big conference that we were going to with thousands of attendees — and everybody knows Dr. Katz." What distinguishes Katz, then and now, Dorval says, is his generosity. He sends hard-to-find electronic equipment to friends and strangers around the world. He hosts a weekly lunch meetup at Pizzeria Uno for people interested in technology. And, for five decades, he has written a free newsletter about high-frequency ham radio for readers as far away as Indonesia. "Throughout my career, I've met a couple of people that are really just Katz was the first amateur radio operator to make contact with all seven continents at a radio frequency (432 MHz) that requires bouncing a signal from the Earth to the moon and back again.

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