Eddie Man-Wai Leung, 1953-2016

Adapted from Leung family obituary

December 13, 2016 (PO48).  Engineering physicist Eddie Man-Wai Leung succumbed to cancer on August 1, surrounded by family and friends in San Diego.  He was 62 years old. Leung is remembered for an early enthusiasm for education. He majored in both Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at Queen’s University in Canada, graduating in 1976 with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Physics.

His first job was at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois, where he built the world’s second largest superconducting split solenoid (electromagnet) for the Chicago Cyclotron Magnet Conversion Project and received the international Russell B. Scott Cryogenic Engineering Award for outstanding research in cryogenic temperature techniques. 

It was during this time that Eddie also received his Master of Engineering Management from the Midwest College of Engineering in Lombard, IL.

Over the next two decades, Leung put his technical and management skills in superconducting magnet applications, maglev, and sensors to use at various corporations in San Diego including General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and General Atomics. In 2000, Leung founded Magtec Engineering, where he worked on the design and construction of large superconducting magnets for the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory, the TRUST program (a project on advanced anti-terrorist sensors for the US Department of Homeland Security), and other smaller maglev and consulting projects. Leung also served as a member of the US Senate National Maglev Advisory Committee and California State Assemblyman Tom Connolly’s Transportation Task Force.

Leung is survived by his wife, Irene, his daughter, Alicia, and his brother, Nelson. He is remembered as a devoted husband and father; a fun-loving and inquisitive man with many interests and passions, and as a knowledgeable and gently persuasive member of the cryogenics community.

Published with permission. The original is published in Cold Facts; October 2016, Volume 32, Number 5; 36. (www.cryogenicsociety.org).