Former chairman of Pitt’s civil engineering department

JOEL IVAN ABRAMS Sept. 7, 1928 - June 4, 2017

Joel Ivan Abrams, a longtime chairman of the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Civil Engineering and founding director of its program in Public Works, diedthis month in Florida.

Mr. Abrams was chairman of the Pitt department from the mid-1960s until 1987, as well as being interim chairman for a short period in the early 1990s.

According to a University of Pittsburgh history, Mr. Abrams “oversaw extensive changes in the civil engineering program during 1966 and 1967.”

In addition to his role at the university, he was active in local engineering circles. He was elected president of the Pittsburgh section, American Society of Civil Engineers in 1973, according to Post-Gazette archives. In the 1970s, he also oversaw a task force of other engineers that made recommendations to improve Alcosan, the Allegheny County Sanitary Authority, which provides wastewater treatment.

Mr. Abrams grew up in Baltimore in modest circumstances, according to his son Stephen, who said Mr. Abrams started working odd jobs as a youngster, such as in a butcher shop, and as a busboy.

He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees at Johns Hopkins University.

While in graduate school in 1950, he went on a blind date with a young University of Maryland pharmacy student, Rosalie Helen Greenberg; they married in 1953 and were married 64 years.

Before moving to Pittsburgh, Mr. Abrams was associate professor of civil engineering at Yale University and co-authored two books, “Influence Lines for Continuous Beams” with Walter C. Boyer and “Principles of Mechanics of Solids and Fluids” with Hsüan Yeh.

Education was extremely important to Mr. Abrams, Stephen Abrams said.

“He was a passionate defender of the value and the transformational power of education,” he said.

Stephen Abrams said his father was a quiet man.

“He was not outwardly loquacious,” he said. “He had a sense of quiet authority. When he did say something, you knew that it was a very considered statement.”

Mr. Abrams enjoyed playing tennis and also making homemade wine. His son recalled making trips to Eriearea vineyards to purchase crushed grapes that would be fermented into wine in the family’s basement.

“He enjoyed drinking it, obviously. He also enjoyed giving it away. It was his standard social gift,” his son said.

Mr. Abrams is survived by his wife Rosalie Abrams of Delray Beach, Fla.; three sons Jeffrey of East Northport, N.Y., Stephen of Berkeley, Calif., and Lane of Falmouth, Mass.; and five grandchildren. Services were last weekin New York.