Bioengineering pioneer Leslie Geddes never stopped solving medical problems or helping students.

That is what colleagues and former students said while reflecting on the death of the Purdue University professor, who won more than 30 patents for everything from burn treatments to tiny blood pressure monitors for premature infants.

Geddes died Sunday in West Lafayette at age 88.

“Dr. Geddes has impacted any patient who has encountered sudden death,” said John DeFord, a student mentored by Geddes as an undergraduate through finishing his doctorate at Purdue in 1990. “He was a pioneer in that space of internal and external defibrillators.”

Even though Geddes, the Showalter Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biomedical Engineering, retired in 1991 after 17 years, he continued teaching, mentoring and thinking up new ideas. He was teaching Thursday.

In 2004, Geddes received Purdue’s Outstanding Commercialization Award for his patents, many licensed by Indiana companies. Those patents and technologies have generated more than $15 million in royalties for Purdue. He also received the nation’s highest honor for technological innovation, the 2006 National Medal of Technology, by then-President George W. Bush.