Cameroon and the educational world have just lost an icon of advanced technology. A teacher in the Department of Mathematics and Engineering at Lewis University in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, Dr. Lucien A. Ngalamou set out from his native Bafang to conquer the world of knowledge.
A man of great faith, Lucien was returning from a prayer session when he was the victim of a traffic accident not far from his home in Minooka, a suburb south of Chicago. The preliminary police report indicates that he had stopped at a stop sign and then made a right turn when he was very violently hit head-on by a 4×4 pickup! Transported to the emergency services of Morris Hospital & Healthcare Centers, he will die around midnight this Saturday August 19, 2023.
A unique course!
There was a year when the Baccalaureate series C had been so tough that only one person was admitted to the center of Bafang: it was Lucien Ngalamou. From then on, his genius will explode with an enlightened passage to the University of Yaoundé for his degree in Math-Info, a stop at the University of Montpellier for his Master’s degree in Electronic Engineering, and finally conclude with his Doctorate in Electronics at the Joseph Fourier University of Grenoble in France. After starting his professional career in France, he flew to the Islands and landed at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago…
Having left the Caribbean, he arrived in the United States as a teacher at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. After a year, he decided to go into the private sector and worked as a researcher respectively at Trilithic Network Services (Indiana), Vibration Research (Michigan) and Collins Aerospace (Rockford-Illinois). At Collins where he works as Senior Hardware Design Engineer, he was in the team in charge of managing the crisis of the batteries which caught fire on board the Boeing 787, Collins being a subcontractor of the world aeronautical giant that is Boeing. The impact of this experience on him as the head of a single parent family prompted him to return to the world of research and education which presented less stress and instability. It was at Loyola University in Chicago that he relaunched his teaching career in 2015 before joining Lewis University a year later. In 2019, he traveled to China as Visiting Professor at Miami College of Henan University. At Lewis University where he had definitely found certain stability since 2015, there is dismay: “It is with great sadness that we announce that Lewis University has been informed of the death of a beloved colleague, the Dr. Lucien Ngalamou Pideu. The Professor of Engineering, Computer Science and Mathematical Sciences died in a car accident on August 19, 2023. Lewis University expresses its deepest sympathy and prayerful consolation to the family and friends of Lucien Ngalamou Pideu. He influenced the lives of many students during his seven years of service at Lewis University,” reads his university website.
Dream shattered!
It’s as if it were yesterday that Lucien and his childhood friends who had nicknamed him “Mister” because he applied mathematical formulas to the ball while playing football in this vacant lot behind the Town Hall of Paachi in Bafang. He was so strong in mathematics that his promotions had converted his second name Pideu into a mathematical formula (π2)!
The second child in a family of eight, Lucien showed unyielding rigor, irrevocable discipline and infallible moral probity during his brief stay in this valley of tears. Popular thought often alludes to “empty barrels that make too much noise” to speak of uneducated and pedantic people, but never mentions the full and well-made brains that never make a sound. Lucien was one of that rare specimen who never displayed his title of Doctor or Professor. On the contrary, his legendary humility almost always led him to “drown” in the crowd when he happened to take part in community events. On observation, it was difficult to establish the link with this “brain” which, in addition to its teachings, carried out very advanced research in the field of the Internet of Things (IOT) and artificial intelligence (AI) .
With this sudden and tragic death, his dream of one day being able to return to Cameroon to share his experience and the knowledge he will have accumulated both in his extensive research and in his many trips to the four corners of the world goes up in smoke! But “man proposes and God disposes”, goes the saying. Nevertheless, we can take comfort in the fact that like a shooting star he radiated many people with his light and intelligence in a short time. All that remains is the prayers so that his three orphans carry their father’s torch even further and higher.
Rest in peace, Comrade! Link to contribute to the funeral:
