Leon H. Sibul, a senior scientist in the Applied Research Laboratory and a Penn State professor emeritus, died Feb. 19, in Tallinn, Estonia. At the time of his death, he was a visiting professor at the Tallinn Technical University.
Sibul was born Aug. 30, 1932 in Voru, Estonia. In 1944 he fled his native country under the threat of the Russian occupation, which lasted more than 50 years. He escaped to a refugee camp in Augsburg, Germany where he attended high school. In 1949 he emigrated to the United Statse and lived in the Washington, D.C. area. A veteran of the U.S. Air Force, he served from 1953 to 1957 as an electronic and radio technician, serving overseas during the Korean Conflict. After his military service, he attended George Washington University and graduated in 1960 with a bachelor of electrical engineering degree. He earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from New York University in 1963. In 1964 he started working for Penn State's Applied Research Laboratory (ARL), receiving his doctoral degree from Penn State in 1968. While at ARL he conducted fundamental and applied signal-processing research and development for undersea weapons guidance and control, sonar systems and other Navy applications.
While at Penn State he supervised many graduate students pursuing both their master's and doctoral degrees. Although he retired as senior scientist, professor of acoustics and head of the Department of Signal Processing at ARL in 2002, he continued to mentor and advise his graduate students and pursue his research as a professor emeritus at Penn State until his death.
His publications included the textbook "Adaptive Signal Processing," author and co-author of 40 papers in refereed journals, six chapters in edited books, close to 100 conference presentations in his field and two patents.
A memorial service will be held this summer at the Grace Lutheran Church in State College. Memorial contributions may be made to the Estonian American Fund, P.O. Box 13266, Silver Spring, Md., 20911-3266.