This book, which represents a snapshot of the disciplines as of 1985, has been for many years the standard textbook in the field, and has been translated into four foreign Languages (Russian, Japanese, Chinese, and Polish).
His 1979 paper (with Jean Vuillemin), still highly cited, presented the cube-connected-cycles (CCC), a parallel architecture that optimally emulates the hypercube interconnection.
This interconnection was closely reflected in the architecture of the CM2 of Thinking Machines Inc., the first massive-parallel system in the VLSI era.
After a postdoctorate at CNR and several years of working in industry, he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1965, where he achieved the rank of Professor in 1970.
In 1991, Preparata moved from Illinois to Brown University where he has remained active in research, teaching, and student advising until his retirement at the end of 2013.