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Dante Americo DiFranco, a scientific researcher, died at the Oakwood Health Care Center early Saturday morning of natural causes. He was 82.
Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, to Angela and Giovanni, his middle name reflects the appreciation of his recently immigrated parents for their adopted homeland. The first in his family to attend college, he graduated from Carnegie Mellon University and later attended MIT, where he met his architect wife, Elizabeth Ross.
His long and varied career in engineering included aeronautical as well as structural research and design, all within the greater Buffalo area. In the late 1940's, as a researcher with an expertise in the area of aerodynamic stability and control, he worked on the first supersonic airplane, the X-1, at Bell Aircraft. He recalled how the pioneering project was so secret that they attached fake propellers to the fuselage as a disguise for transport. He later worked at Flight Sciences Laboratory, the Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, and then shifted into architectural engineering, partnering with Elizabeth to form the design team of Di Franco Associates.
In the 1980's, intrigued by the load bearing potential of two dimensional truss and beam systems, he created his signature "Form Adaptive Structures". Later in life he added color to printed representations of these geometrical designs, converting what was essentially a scientific endeavor into a wholly aesthetic one.
Though he had a mathematical mind, he also had an engaged social conscience and was an especially impassioned supporter of the arts. A devotee of American artists such as Martha Graham, Aaron Copeland, Agnes DeMille, and his mentor Buckminster Fuller, he held creativity in the highest esteem and had a reverence for artistic endeavor that was contagious.
Above all, he was a family man, whose idea of bliss was a simple picnic of pepperoni sandwiches with his wife and two children. His love was steady and unconditional and his goodwill radiated quietly to all who knew him.
He is survived by his wife Elizabeth, his son Ross, his daughter Ani, his sister Jean Wilczewski, and three grandsons, Cameron, Carson and Colton.
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In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to:
The Righteous Babe Foundation
PO Box 95, Ellicott Station
Buffalo, NY 14205-0095