With heavy hearts, we announce the death of Dragoslav Siljak, our beloved husband, father, grandfather, and friend, on November 16. He was a man of great strength and warmth, and we will miss his presence.

Dragoslav was born in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1933, and his early years were marked by the hardships of war and communism in his hometown of Belgrade. In those years, he developed the resilience and character that led him to his many successes.

While still in his teens, he played water polo for Yugoslavia's national team. They qualified for the Olympics twice, and his team won a Silver Medal in 1952. Even after his years of water polo were over, he enjoyed sports and believed in "mens sana in corpore sano (a healthy mind in a healthy body)."

After his Olympic career, he turned to the scholarship that became his life for 50 years. He earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at the University of Belgrade at the age of 29. In 1964, he emigrated to the United States and became a faculty member in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Santa Clara University, where he researched and taught for 48 years. During that time, Dragoslav's research in control systems was awarded NASA grants, including work on the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon. He was the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (considered the most prestigious award in the field of control systems) in 2010. He also became a Lifetime Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1981, was selected as a Distinguished Professor of the Fulbright Foundation in 1984, and became an International Member of the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1985.

In 1967, Dragoslav married his beloved wife, Dragana Siljak, and she joined him in California. They were happy for 58 years, with their two children, Ana and Matija. Together, they fostered an atmosphere of cultural and intellectual life. Weekends were spent at the symphony and at the theatre, and their living room was always a place of philosophical conversation and political debate. To the end of his life, even when he was incapacitated by illness, his mind remained active – he read books, kept up with politics, and discussed big ideas with all his friends and family. Often confined to his bed, he spent his time, he told us, "figuring things out."

A sophisticated and polished man in his youth, he retained his dignity to the end, even after disability confined him to his wheelchair. He was never depressed, nor afraid of the future, but grateful for the time he had with us on earth.

His wife, his children, their spouses (Jeffrey and Mirna), and his five grandchildren (Theodore, Natalia, Siena, Alexander, and Dario) miss his thoughtful advice and passion for conversation. We are all thankful for the full life he led and for the many years we had with him. We wait in joyful hope for the resurrection, and we know he is alive in God.