The College of Computing community was saddened to learn of the recent death of former faculty member, Professor Emeritus Lucio Chiaraviglio.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with Lucio’s family and friends,” said Dean Zvi Galil. “He was a charismatic and brilliant man whose keen understanding of mathematics and logic helped to shape computing at Georgia Tech and to lay the groundwork for what would become the College of Computing.”

Chiaraviglio joined Georgia Tech in 1968 to oversee the then newly launched Ph.D. program in the School of Information Science (IS). According the College of Computing’s history, he “became a unifying figure for the Ph.D. students and an important part of the linguistics and logic research groups that began to develop.”

One of Chiaraviglio’s first Ph.D. students was former John P. Imlay Dean of Computing at Georgia Tech, Rich DeMillo. “Lucio became a father-figure and mentor to his students,” recalled DeMillo. “Sunday lunches with the Chiaraviglio family was part of intellectual life for many of us.”

In a 2001 book by Donald MacKenzie, DeMillo described Chiaraviglio as a very powerful personality. “I was drawn to him kind of on a personal level, but I was also sort of sucked up into the logical positivism view of the world” Chiaraviglio possessed.

A number of faculty and friends also shared their memories of Chiaraviglio after learning of his passing this week.

In July 1978, Chiaraviglio was appointed as interim director of the School of Information and Computer Science. He became the school’s associate director two years later.

Chiaraviglio retired from Georgia Tech in 1992 after filling a variety of important roles in the development of the School of Information and Computer Science, and then with the founding of the College of Computing. In all, Chiaraviglio was a key computing faculty member for more than two decades.

Although retired, Chiaraviglio remained active within the College of Computing community, serving as emeritus professor until his passing. Chiaraviglio was born in 1926 and earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from Emory University in 1961.