Dr. Christos Theodorou Constantinides passed away on February 21, 2025. “Dr. C”, as he was affectionately known by his students and colleagues at the University of Wyoming, was born on March 22, 1931, in Nicosia, Cyprus. He was the second child of Theodoros Christou Constantinides and Eleni (Tompazi) Constantinides.
When Dr. C was two years old his father passed away, leaving him, his sister, Agni, and mother. His uncles and cousins looked after them, while his mother took on the daunting task of raising the family as a widow in a country where widows were expected be in mourning for the rest of their lives. His cousin Eftichis took a particular interest in him, teaching him photography and taking him along on many of his news jobs. He loved learning, excelling in math and science at a school run by Orthodox nuns. He often mentioned how strict the nuns were, and the rules the students had to follow at the pain of having their knuckles rapped with a ruler.
Dr. C attended the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in England, receiving a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1955. Between the time he graduated from “gymnasium” and left for Manchester he worked as a bartender at the Cyprus Airways pilots lounge at Nicosia International Airport. In the summers he remained in England where he held various jobs, including as a dishwasher at a lunch counter, and for a very brief time as a furnace stoker. He always loved telling his family stories about those experiences. After receiving his master’s degree, he worked in Very High Frequency and Ultra High Frequency control systems for Marconi outside of London, receiving patents for his work.
In 1958, Dr. C moved to the United States to obtain a PhD in Electrical Engineering at the University of Kansas which he received in 1964. While there he met Janet Clark who was studying English. They married in 1962 in Kansas City, MO, and then moved to the University of Oklahoma where he was an assistant professor and Janet received her Master of Arts.
The young couple chose to accept positions at the University of Wyoming in 1967, where they settled and Dr. C became a Professor of Electrical Engineering in 1975. He taught Control Systems and many other EE subjects over his long career. He held NSF fellow and post-graduate fellowships at Manhattan Institute of Technology and Stanford, and participated in summer institutes at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at UCLA and at Stanford University. He received a patent for research at the UNIVAC division of Rand-Sperry Corporation. Being a Professor was a source of joy over his long career, where he loved seeing his students graduate and hear from them later in their lives. He was proud to have received the Mortar Board “Top Prof” award from his students and to serve as the long-time sponsor of the Society of Women Engineers. Dr. C and Janet were decades-long season ticket holders for Wyoming Cowboys football, and attended many hundreds of Cowboys and Cowgirls sporting events.
The Constantinides’ truly loved Laramie and their home there, but spent most summers travelling to England, Greece and Cyprus. Before they had children, they would travel to Germany and drive a new Volkswagen through Yugoslavia and Greece on their way to Cyprus. Cyprus was a constant for the family, where they had many family and great friends, including Chris’ childhood best friend, Dinos Demades and his family with whom they spent many happy times and who were very generous to Dr C.
Dr. C and Janet had two sons, Theodoros (Thoro) and Alexios (Alex), of whom Dr. C was very proud. He taught them to ski at Happy Jack and Medicine Bow / Snowy Range ski areas outside of Laramie. He quickly joined the Laramie Soccer Association when it started in 1978, first as the coach for Alex’s Thayer Elementary team and then as a referee. As his sons grew older he would drive around town to find soccer games without referees, and drop them off to referee those games. He became a board member and the leagues’s referee scheduler, continuing to serve as the scheduler even after he retired from the University, and took great pains to ensure that all the LSA games under his watch had referees. He loved refereeing, especially for the elementary kids, and was a FIFA certified referee in the State of Wyoming, where he served as an official in many competitive and Wyoming State tournaments.
Dr. C is survived by his wife, Janet, of Colorado Springs CO, sons Alex (Shannon) of Colorado Springs and Thoro (Lisa) of Thornton CO, grandchildren Nathan and Addison of Thornton CO, sister-in-law Judy Anderson of Columbia SC, nieces Maria (Mike) Efthymiou and Eleni Ioannides of England, Maria’s children and grandchildren, and many cousins and extended cousins in Cyprus.
Services will be held at Montgomery Stryker funeral home on March 14, with visitation at 9 a.m., a short service at 9:30 a.m. followed by interment at Greenhill Cemetery.
In lieu of gifts, the family requests contributions to the Christos Constantinides (Dr. C) Electrical Engineering Scholarship. Contribute online at https://www.givecampus.com/campaigns/59628/donations/new, please manually enter the scholarship name in the “Giving Priorities”. Contributions checks may also be mailed to the address below, payable to the University of Wyoming Foundation, with “Christos Constantinides (Dr. C) Electrical Engineering Scholarship” in the memo.
University of Wyoming Foundation
Marian Rochelle Gateway Center
222 South 22nd Street
Laramie, WY 82070
