Cooper Union

Harold Mukamal CE'61

Dr. Harold Heskel Mukamal CE'61 passed away on January 14, 2023 in Orange County, California. He lived for 83 years and died from complications of Parkinson’s Disease.

Dr. Mukamal was born in Baghdad, Iraq on November 8, 1939, the second of five children of Louise and Isaac Sassoon Mukamal. With his parents and siblings, he immigrated to the United States shortly after he became a Bar Mitzvah at the age of 13. The family settled in Hewlett, New York, where he completed high school. He graduated from the Cooper Union in 1961 with a degree in Chemical Engineering and earned a PhD in Polymer Chemistry from the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (now NYU) in 1966.

To read his obituary, please click here.

Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.
“My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”
From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.
Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.