Alexander Scordelis, 83; engineering professor, expert on long spans

Alexander C. Scordelis, 83, a professor emeritus of structural engineering at UC Berkeley and an expert on long-span bridges and the prestressed concrete shell structures seen at airports and stadiums, died Monday at the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center in Berkeley after a long illness, the university announced.

Scordelis taught for 41 years in Berkeley’s highly regarded civil engineering program. In 1989, Gov. George Deukmejian named him to the board of inquiry into the Loma Prieta earthquake. Scordelis also served on several other panels that studied the seismic safety of California’s infrastructure.

“Scordelis provided a lot of the tools and background for the slender flyovers that made California’s highways famous,” Mark Ketchum, who studied at Berkeley and became vice president of OPAC Consulting Engineers, said in a statement.

Born Sept. 27, 1923, in San Francisco to Greek immigrant parents who ran a grocery store in the Marina District, Scordelis enrolled at UC Berkeley at age 16. During World War II, he served with the Army Corps of Engineers in Europe and was awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart.

He completed his bachelor’s degree in civil engineering at Berkeley in 1948. After earning his master’s in civil engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949, he returned to teach at Berkeley. He retired in 1990.