Elio Bava, Full Professor of Electronic Measurements, born on 1940 October 6th in Cocconato (AT), passed away on 2015 January 17th. In this page, his colleagues and friends from Politecnico di Milano, and in particular from the Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria and the Dipartimento di Fisica, want to remember him with gratitude and affection.
Graduated in 1964 in Electronic Engineering, at Politecnico di Torino, he was a Researcher at the National Electrotechnical Institute (IEN) - Galileo Ferraris from 1966 until 1990 when he became Full Professor of Electrical and Electronic Measurements at the Department of Electrotechnics of Politecnico di Milano. In 1991 he moved to the Electronics and Information Department, originally in the Telecommunications Section and lately in the Systems and Control Section. In 2002 he was appointed President of IEN - Galileo Ferraris and in 2004 he moved as Full Professor of Electrical and Electronic Measurements to Politecnico di Torino. In 2006 he was appointed Commissioner of INRiM (Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica), created in the same year by the merging of IEN Galileo Ferraris and the Istituto di Metrologia Gustavo Colonnetti, and in 2009 he was appointed President of INRiM.
His research activity, carried out with diligence, great commitment and brilliant results for over 40 years, was primarily focused in the field of electromagnetic, time, and frequency metrology. He has studied and developed atomic frequency standards, frequency synthesis systems from microwaves to the visible spectrum, and he has been the author of numerous international scientific publications. At Politecnico di Milano he founded and directed the Optical and Electronic Measurements Laboratory where he carried out, amongst others, experiments on optical frequency standards based on solid-state laser oscillators. He was the Coordinator of the Measurements Group of the Department of Electronics and Information, following the PhD and Teaching activities of the Group, up to his appointment as President of INRiM.
His research activity was paired with his university teaching where, thanks to his interdisciplinary knowledge and human skills of great availability and commitment, he wanted and succeeded to teach various university courses (including Power Electronics, Electronic Measurements, Fundamentals of Measurement, Radio-Frequency Measurements, Reliability and Data Analysis, Measurements for Telecommunications, Position measurements and satellite navigation, and others). In teaching he always spent a strong personal commitment in the training of young students in modern scientific and technological applications, in the five-year degree courses, in the university diploma courses, in the three-year and master's degree courses, and in the doctorate courses. Together with his colleagues from Politecnico di Milano he wrote some educational books, including "Principles of Measurement", "Fundamentals of Measurement", and "Electronic Laboratory Measurements", which are still very useful to students of university courses of Measurements.
He was Chairman of Commission A (Electromagnetic Metrology) of URSI (International Union of Radio Science). Member of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and of the GMEE (National Group of Electrical and Electronic Measurements). He has participated in various international conferences and international and national working commissions on electrical and optical metrology topics. Elio’s death has left a big lack in the community of Italian researchers in Measurements and in particular of the GMEE Association, of which he was always a supporter. He was the head of the Research Unit of Politecnico di Milano, member of the Board of Directors of GMEE and passionate promoter and participant of all the Conferences of the Italian Group on Electrical and Electronic Measurements. A man of great honesty and fairness, an excellent family man and a passionate mountain lover, he remains alive in the positive memory of those who knew him.