BY BORIS BRESLER, EGOR POPOV, EDWARD WILSON, AND ALEXANDER SCORDELIS

HOWARD EBERHART, one of the University of California at Berkeley's most highly respected and acclaimed teachers in civil engineering, and a pioneer of research in artificial limbs, died of a heart attack on July 18, 1993, while he was returning from Arizona to his home in Santa Barbara.

He was born August 16, 1906, in Lima, Ohio, and attended the University of Oregon in Eugene from 1924 to 1929, graduating with a B.S. degree in architecture. After teaching high school mathematics and science and coaching athletic teams in the state of Washington, he returned in 1933 to Oregon State College in Corvallis, where he received an M.S. degree in civil engineering in 1935. His first appointment at the University of California, Berkeley, was as an instructor in 1936, after which he rose through the professional ranks to become a full professor of civil engineering in 1948. He served twice as chairman of the Department of Civil Engineering from 1959 to 1963 and 1971 to 1974. Throughout his academic career at Berkeley he played a leading role in the growth and development of the Department of Civil Engineering such that the program attained a ranking of first in the nation. After he retired from Berkeley in 1974, he spent three years in Saudi Arabia establishing the Civil Engineering Department at King Abdul Aziz University of Jidda. During the period from 1980 to 1991, he was invited to teach courses in the College of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara.