| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Ben Tzion Cynowicz | ||
| Date of birth | 21 April 1937 | ||
| Place of birth | Tel Aviv, Palestine | ||
| Playing position | Striker | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps† | (Gls)† |
| 1955–1957 | Hapoel Tel Aviv | ||
| 1957–1961 | NYU Violets | ||
| 1959 | New York Hakoah | ||
| 1961–1962 | Stanford Cardinal | ||
| 1962–1965 | Princeton University | ||
| National team | |||
| 1959 | United States | 1 | (0) |
| * Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. † Appearances (Goals). |
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Ben T. Zinn (born 21 April 1937 in Tel Aviv) is an Israeli-born American academic in engineering and former international soccer player. He is currently the David S. Lewis, Jr., Chair and Regents' Professor at Georgia Tech.[1]
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Ben T. Zinn was born as Ben Tzion Cynowicz in Tel Aviv in 1937; his parents had moved there from Poland in 1936.[2] Zinn's grandparents and twelve uncles and aunts all died in Nazi concentration camps.[2]
Zinn has two children from a previous marriage to the daughter of Erno Schwarcz - daughter Leslie Zinn and son Edward Zinn, both of whom attended Georgia Tech.[2]
Zinn's Polish surname was "Cynowicz", which in Hebrew was spelt as "Tzinovitz". To conform with Israeli government policy, it was shortened to "Tzinn", which was the name he used to travel with the Israeli All Star team. When he came to America he used both "Cinovitz" and "Cinowitz", with the latter being the name he used in his national team career. He later reverted to his official Hebrew surname of "Tzinn", which was then shortened to "Zinn".
Playing with league champions Hapoel Tel Aviv and an Israeli "All Star" side which toured Europe and the United States, Zinn began his soccer career in Israel.[3] Zinn played soccer for New York University where he averaged 3.2 goals per game,[3] and where he eventually became club captain.[4] He also played part-time for New York Hakoah in the American Soccer League. Zinn made one official appearance on 28 May 1959 for the United States men's national soccer team, in an 8–1 defeat to England.[5][6] Zinn was also a member of the national team squad for unofficial games on a number of other occasions. When Zinn became a professor at Georgia Tech in 1965, he turned down an invitation to join the Israeli national side, professional soccer contract in the NASL from the Atlanta Chiefs, and an invitation to try out as a field kicker for the Atlanta Falcons.[3]
After missing an entrance exam for the Israeli Institute of Technology, Zinn moved to New York to attend the New York University. After spending four years at NYU, Zinn attended Stanford – where he earned his MS degree – before moving onto Princeton to earn his doctorate.[7] He began his forty-year association with Georgia Tech in 1965. Zinn is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.[8] Zinn was awarded the George Westinghouse Gold Medal by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 2006.[9] Zinn also holds thirteen patents.[10] Georgia Tech’s combustion laboratory is named after Zinn.[3]