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Carl Edward Magnusson was a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Washington from 1904-1941; his main interest was in hydroelectric power in Washington. Magnusson's appointment to full professor is considered to mark the start of the Department of Electrical Engineering as an independent unit on campus. He was department chair from 1906-1917 and Dean of the Engineering College from 1917-1929. Magnusson believed in having a close relationship with industry and had practicing engineers lecture in his classes. In about 1910 he took a leave of absence for two years to work for the General Electric Company. As a result of his working relationship with GE, the company donated an electric oscillograph in 1913, which lead to the development of a course in electric transients, possibly the first such course to be offered in an American college. In 1919 he proposed building a 230-kv line from the Canadian border to Los Angeles, connecting the three state region; the idea was eventually put into place many years later. A 1932 issue of the University of Washington newspaper noted that Magnusson had won international fame for his studies of Lichtenberg figures. During the 1930s, he also served as an advisor on the construction of the Grand Coulee Project on the Columbia River. Carl Magnusson died in 1941.