Date: 01/22/2008

The life of Prof. Kevin Corker, an international aeronautics expert and highly respected engineering teacher and colleague, will be celebrated with a service at 5 p.m. Wednesday, January 23, at St. Christopher's Church, 1576 Curtner Ave., San José. Corker, 54, worked at BBN Technologies and the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View before arriving at San José State. He taught through fall 2007 while undergoing treatment for cancer before dying Thursday, January 17. Corker was associate dean of research at the Charles W. Davidson College of Engineering, where he and his colleagues secured more than $7 million in grants since 1999 from various agencies including NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration. He also testified before Congress and served as a consultant to aeronautics programs abroad including the European Space Agency.

Corker's research touched the lives of all air travelers. With a doctoral degree in cognitive psychology and engineering systems from UCLA, Corker specialized in the computational representation of human cognitive processes in interaction with complex systems. In essence, he focused on the role human behavior played in complex environments such as commercial aviation safety as well as space, military and nuclear power plant operations. To enable related research on campus, he helped design and develop the College of Engineering's Human Automation Integration Lab.

At SJSU, he was also known as a brilliant teacher who was well respected by students, faculty and staff. "Dr. Corker's proudest career achievement was realized when he became a professor and associate dean of the College of Engineering at San José State University. As a scholar and teacher, Kevin's passion was sharing his knowledge. This commitment was recognized by earning the Teacher of the Year award for the College of Engineering in 2005 along with numerous other professional awards and recognitions," said an obituary published by his family in the San José Mercury News.

Corker's family asks contributions be made to the American Cancer Society in lieu of flowers. Read the full Mercury News obituary by searching for Corker on the newspaper's site.