Joe Lingerfelt, who taught math at Northern Arizona University for 28 years, died Dec. 30. He was 70.
Early in his career, Lingerfelt worked for Jet Propulsion Laboratories and NASA on the Apollo Space Launches and was an innovator in design of the Lunar Rover Vehicle. He taught physics at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif. from 1961 until 1970 when he moved to Flagstaff to teach mathematics at NAU. He served as president of the Faculty Senate and he and his wife, Dianne, were joint homecoming dedicatees in 1997. He retired from the Mathematics Department in 1998.
Lingerfelt received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the California Institute of Technology, and later received his Ph.D. in engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara.