Walter G. Vincenti

Walter Guido Vincenti (April 20, 1917 – October 11, 2019) was an American engineer who worked in the field of aeronautics, designing planes that could fly at hypersonic speed. He was elected as a member of several scientific societies, including the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and National Academy of Engineering. He won several prestigious awards, such as the Leonardo da Vinci Medal and the Daniel Guggenheim Medal.

Early life and education Walter Guido Vincenti was born on April 20, 1917, in Baltimore, Maryland, to parents Agnes and Guido Vincenti, emigrants from Italy. He was one of five children.

Like his two elder brothers, he attended Stanford University for his undergraduate degree. He then completed two years of graduate work at Stanford in their mechanical engineering track with an emphasis in aeronautics.

Awards and honors In 1951 he was made a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He received a Rockefeller Public Service Award in 1956 for his work on heat shields for spacecraft re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. In recognition of his work teaching undergraduates, Stanford gave him the Lloyd W. Dinkelspiel Award in 1983. The Society for the History of Technology awarded him the Leonardo da Vinci Medal in 1998. In 2016 he was awarded the Daniel Guggenheim Medal for his career in the field of aeronautics. In 2019, he received the Stanford Engineering Heroes Award, which is the highest award given by the Stanford University School of Engineering. They had a son and daughter together. Vincenti died of pneumonia in Palo Alto, California on October 11, 2019. He was 102 years old.