As an alumnus of the College of Engineering and associate chair of the electrical and computer engineering department, Mohammad Massoudi appreciates the quality education he received at Cal Poly Pomona and wants to provide engineering students with opportunities for academic success.
“After my wife passed away earlier this year, I decided to set up a $20,000 endowed scholarship to benefit students in the electrical and computer engineering department,” Massoudi says.
The Professor Mohammad and Parvin Massoudi Scholarship will distribute awards from $250 to $3,000 to full-time electrical engineering juniors and seniors. The first scholarships are expected to be awarded in the 2013-14 academic year.
Massoudi came to Cal Poly Pomona in summer 1970 as a freshman and graduated in December 1973. He earned a master’s degree at Cal Poly Pomona in 1975, when he started teaching part time and working in industry. His industrial experience includes NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Almond Instruments, EG&G Power Systems, and Perkin-Elmer Power Systems. He became a full time faculty member in 1981.
Well-liked by engineering students, Massoudi has earned a number of distinctions over the years, including Outstanding Professor by Eta Kappa Nu, Zeta Theta Chapter and the National Honor Society for Electrical Engineers. The College of Engineering honored him as an Outstanding Advisor in 1996-97, and he earned similar accolades from Eta Kappa Nu, Zeta Theta Chapter, and the National Honor Society for Electrical Engineers.
“Massoudi has spent his life helping to give the best possible engineering education to students at Cal Poly Pomona. He and his wife felt strongly about the mission of our college, and he wanted her memory to be honored through providing assistance to talented engineering students in need,” says Mahyar Amouzegar, dean of the college.
Massoudi married his wife, Parvin, in 1976. In 1982 she was diagnosed with a chronic heart illness and went through seven years of medical treatment that eventually required her to have a lifesaving procedure of the “Human Heart Transplant Operation” at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She passed away in April after a a massive infection took over her body. Parvin is survived by her husband; their daughter, a Cal Poly Pomona alumna; and two granddaughters.
Cal Poly Pomona has embarked on a $150 million comprehensive fundraising campaign to ensure that a quality college education is within reach for future generations of students. The campaign, which recently surpassed $100 million in donations and pledges, will strengthen the university’s ability to provide a hands-on education, to prepare students for the changing demands of the workplace, and to increase research and scholarship opportunities. The fundraising campaign relies on the support of the entire campus community — from alumni to faculty and staff to friends of the university. For more information, visit https://campaign.cpp.edu/.