B. Neil Cuffin, an expert in biomagnetism — the process by which humans and other organisms produce magnetic fields — died July 21 in Florida after a struggle with cancer of the jaw and Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) virus. He was 74 years old.

Cuffin received his PhD in electrical engineering in 1975 at Penn State University, where he wrote his thesis on modeling the electric and magnetic field of the human heart under the direction of David Geselowitz. Cuffin came to MIT as a postdoc in David Cohen’s Biomagnetism Group at the Francis Bitter Magnet Laboratory, where he eventually become a principal investigator in his own right. He worked with this group for 21 years until it was phased out in 1996, at which time he transferred to the Epilepsy EEG Group at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, under the direction of Donald Schomer. In 2003, Cuffin retired to Florida.

The Biomagnetism Group at MIT sought to measure and understand the weak magnetic fields produced by the organs of the human body. Cuffin, the main modeler and theoretician of the group, was a pioneer in both the forward problem (calculating the external magnetic field from electrical sources in the body, such as the heart and brain), and the magnetic inverse problem (calculating the internal sources from known external fields). Usually supported by National Institutes of Health grants, he developed and published numerous papers on inverse solutions for the magnetoencephalogram, an imaging device that measures magnetic fields in the brain, and became an international leader in this area. Although he later pursued an interest in the electroencephalogram at Beth Israel Deaconess, he is most widely remembered for his work on the biomagnetic inverse problem.

George Adelman, noted neuroscience editor, died June 26 due to complications of an injury after a fall. He was 89 years old.

Adelman joined MIT in 1963 as the managing editor for the Neurosciences Research Program (NRP), developed by MIT professor of biology Francis Schmitt, bringing together the top scientists in related fields to focus on the new discipline of neuroscience.

The new organization, a kind of think tank of resident and visiting scientists, had as its core 36 associates, world-class scientists representing the life sciences as well as physics, mathematics, and molecular biology. The program included six three-day "Work Sessions" per year, each bringing together leaders in an emerging field of brain studies to present current research and to consider unifying theories. These numerous sessions were edited by Adelman and published as NRP Bulletins. Other NRP meetings also aided the growth of neuroscience, especially the Intensive Study Programs of 1967, 1972, 1977, and 1980, which mapped the boundaries of neuroscience; each resulted in a compendium, again edited by Adelman. With more than 150 neuroscientists participated in each meeting, Adelman became influential and known internationally for his work.

Adelman left MIT in 1982 when the NRP transferred to another institution. After several years of consulting, he joined Elsevier Publishing in 1985 as their neuroscience editor. There he created the well-known "Encyclopedia of Neuroscience," using his contacts to bring in articles by more than 700 authors. He published several updates, which were translated into other languages.

Adelman rejoined MIT in 1993 as a visiting scientist in David Cohen’s Biomagnetism Group at the Francis Bitter Magnet Lab, where he produced his second edition of the neuroscience encyclopedia. After this group phased out in 1996, he continued in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, where he worked on a neuroscience history and used his editing skills on such projects as a neuroanatomy textbook by Professor Gerald Schneider. Adelman was active until his last several years.

Susanne Elizabeth Martin, who worked at MIT for 29 years, passed away peacefully at her home in Reading, Massachusetts, on August 14. She was 68.

She was born to Jack Martin and Rose Ellen Plutchak Martin (formerly of Rockland, Michigan) on December 3, 1946. Her family moved to Detroit in 1960, where she graduated from Redford High School. She attended St. John’s College in Annapolis and completed her BA through the Harvard University Extension School.

Martin’s career at MIT began at MIT Medical, where she started in 1978 as a senior office assistant. In 1993, she became the administrative officer for the Writing Program (then called the Writing and Humanistic Studies Program) in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, where she worked until her retirement in 2007.

Like many MIT administrators of her era, Susanne played a crucial role in bringing about the office revolution in computing and communication at the Institute through implementing successive advances in communication, spreadsheets, and database management. She was an innovator who enjoyed the challenge of managing complex environments, rising to supervisor of the business office in MIT Medical from 1986 to 1993. In the early 1980s, Martin helped develop a new pharmacy cash control system and, during her years as supervisor, worked with consultants and database managers to develop a new in-house computerized billing system.

As a lover of great books, an exceptionally widely read intellectual, and a discerning art appreciator, Martin savored her role as the administrative officer of the Writing Program. With her impressive range, spanning the computational complexities of administrative management and the contemporary world of the arts and humanities, she formed close friendships with many program members, who often called her the soul of the program. Martin was especially close to many of the artists in the program, including Ilona Karmel, Anita Desai, Joe and Gay Haldeman, Helen Lee, Rob Kanigel, and Ellen Cooney.

Martin was also a resourceful planner and builder, managing details with ease. She oversaw the program's involvement in two major educational initiatives: a graduate program in science writing and the Institute-wide Undergraduate Communication Requirement. Extensive new interdepartmental coordinating and personnel structures were required for a growing pool of collaborating faculty, lecturers, and support staff who gave these programs their energy and effect.

Martin not only oversaw the implementation of these programs, but she gained a reputation as a fixer with heart. “People over systems” was the rule of her administration. Sarah Merrow, a former graduate administrator of the Program in Science Writing, recalls, “Susanne cared deeply about the people around her, and strove to enhance the working environment in the various programs she managed. She kept a discerning eye on the well being of the staff for whom she was responsible. As a manager, she encouraged us to explore and accomplish, and knew when to step in and when to step back."

As Martin rose through the administration, she became known as a talented counselor. Rob Kanigel, a former head of Writing and Humanistic Studies observed: "I’d drop by her office, sit down with her, and learn. I’d learn about the culture of MIT. I’d ask, she’d listen — her deep, still, wise eyes taking it all in, focused on the question, the problem, the conundrum. Then she’d speak. She was not shy about saying what she thought. She was forthright. But what she advised always responded to the full context of the situation, with all its ins and outs and trap doors. Her wise listening came first."

Ellen Cooney, a former writer-in-residence, recalls:  "To walk into her office, whether for the first time or the hundredth, meant that you'd be met by a gracious, keenly smart, gentle-mannered professional who made you know in one second that your problem, large or small, was already on the way to being solved. There was a calm dignity about her all the time, even when she was laughing her head off at a situation that might have felt awful, had she not reached into her skill set for her gifts of humor, caring, and a lovely ability to blend her professionalism with plain old human warmth and genuine feeling. She could administrate effortlessly, even casually — or so she would make it seem."

Helen Lee, professor of fiction writing, remembers: "During the days when Susanne was with the Writing Program, there was such a feeling of common purpose and warmth in the program. She never failed to ask about my family or my writing, or to share gardening tips or insights about everyday experience. She operated in the spirit of, 'How can I help you to be your best?' She related to the members of the program as people, and we took genuine interest in each other's lives. She has been greatly missed since retirement and the loss is now immeasurable."

After Martin retired she stayed in touch with many Writing Program colleagues, inviting small groups to teas in her historic Reading cottage, which she lovingly tended, along with her expansive perennial garden and her cat, Guy Noir. She volunteered regularly at Mission of Deeds, a Reading nonprofit that provides beds and furniture for those in need.

A memorial service for Susanne will be held August 22 at the First Congregational Church in Winchester, Massachusetts. She is survived by her father, Jack Martin; her siblings, Kathleen Martin, Peggy Kreger (Brian), John Martin (Jenny), Fred Martin (Linda), and Mary Martin; and her nieces Andrew, Jack, Jessica, Becky, Lizzie, and Thomas. Anyone wishing to make a memorial donation in Susanne’s memory can do so at Mission of Deeds.

_______________________________________________________________________________

Prepared by James Paradis, the Robert M. Metcalfe Professor of Writing and Comparative Media Studies, with assistance from Karen Boiko, lecturer in CMS/W, and from MIT SHASS Communications

Abraham (Abe) Bers ScD ’59, professor emeritus of electrical engineering, died on Friday, Sept. 11 at the age of 85. Bers, who was recognized on campus for his trademark neatly squared bowties, was known both for his accomplishments in the field of plasma physics and for his contributions as a gifted educator.

Bers was born in Czernowitz, Romania, in 1930 and immigrated to Cali, Colombia, with his family in 1948. He entered the University of California at Berkeley the following year. A principal investigator in the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) and the Plasma Science and Fusion Center, he joined the MIT faculty in 1959 after earning his BS at the University of California at Berkeley in 1953, his MS at MIT in 1955, and his ScD at MIT in 1959.

At MIT, Bers collaborated with physicists, electrical engineers, and nuclear engineers studying nuclear fusion as a power source. Bers’ work centered around understanding and quantifying the behavior of plasma, the highly energetic state of matter necessary for fusion to take place.

Together with Professor Richard Briggs, Bers made the first classifications of plasma wave instabilities in the 1960s. In later years, his research focused on radio-frequency methods for heating plasma in tokamaks, devices used to contain plasma in fusion reactors.

Bers lectured frequently at European universities and institutions, spending a sabbatical in the 1970s at the University of Paris. Together with Professor Jean-Loup Delcroix of the University of Paris, he authored the two-volume "Physique des Plasmas," written in French, in which he was fluent.

A longtime teacher of 6.651/8.613 (Introductory Plasma Physics I), Bers inspired generations of students to study plasma physics, and many of them have gone on to be leaders in the field themselves. As an educator, he was known for his meticulous lecture preparation, preparing each class as though teaching it for the first time. In the final months of his life, Bers completed a textbook, "Plasma Physics and Fusion Plasma Electrodynamics," to be published by Oxford University Press this fall.

“Abe was an outstanding plasma theorist and a gifted teacher,” said Miklos Porkolab, professor of physics at MIT. “He was well known for his mathematical rigor and logical explanations, not only in his papers and external lectures, but also in class at MIT.”

Bers held numerous patents, was a fellow of the IEEE, a member of the American Physical Society, and a frequent consultant to industry. He was the author of several books and book chapters, including one of the early classics on the subject of plasma physics and fusion energy, "Waves in Anisotropic Plasmas."

“Professor Bers had a tremendous impact on the department, and was a wonderful colleague,” said Anantha Chandrakasan, the Joseph F. and Nancy P. Keithley Professor of Electrical Engineering and head of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “He will be greatly missed.”   

He is survived by his wife, Anita (Nanny) Bers, his daughter Rachel Bers, his son Josh Bers, and five grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 16th at 12:30 p.m. in the MIT Chapel. 

The MIT Press mourns the loss of Frank Urbanowski, who served as director of the press for an unprecedented 27 years, building it into one of the largest and most successful scholarly publishers in the world. Urbanowski passed away after a long illness on Sept. 19 in Essex Junction, Vt. He was 79.

Urbanowski served as director of the press from June 1975 to January 2003, and is acknowledged as a pioneer in the strategy of the focused disciplinary specialization now widely adopted by university presses. Shortly after his arrival at the MIT Press, Urbanowski devised and implemented the publishing strategy that was fundamental to its success: focusing acquisitions and marketing efforts on a small number of selected disciplines. Under his guidance, the press grew from $3 million to $22 million in annual revenue, and from publishing an annual list of 135 books and four journals to 220 books and more than 30 journals.

Among the highlights of Urbanowski’s time at the MIT Press were the establishment of a desktop publishing operation in the late 1980s, the creation of the first university press website, and the publication of the first interactive electronic book — “City of Bits” by William Mitchell — in 1994. He also established the MIT Press Bookstore on Main Street in Kendall Square in 1981.

In the late 1990s, Urbanowski created the Digital Projects Lab, an innovative digital-publishing group that led to today’s successful CogNet (the online community for the cognitive sciences) and ArchNet (the online resource for Islamic architecture).

In addition, he ably steered the MIT Press through two significant economic downturns, managing strong recoveries each time. The press celebrated its 25th anniversary as a full-scale university press in 1986, with Urbanowski, then serving as director and editor-in-chief, citing “faith in our staff” as his core reason for confidence in its future.

According to Amy Brand, current director of the MIT Press, who served as the acquisitions editor reporting to Urbanowski during the 1990s, “I and the staff of the MIT Press are deeply saddened by the news of Frank’s passing. Not only was he a remarkable leader and mentor to many of us, but he was an extremely decent and warm human being. Frank’s legacy endures as a source of inspiration for me and others at the press and in the broader academic publishing community.”

Urbanowski was an engineering graduate of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and had many and diverse interests, from cabinet making to classical music. He was an opera fan, an avid rower and member of the Cambridge Boat Club, and traveled widely. At his retirement, he moved to Vermont, where he enjoyed the country life and his many advisory positions for the University of California Press, Transaction Publishers, SUNY Press, and the Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education Council. During his career, he also served on numerous boards, including: Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, Wisdom Press, University of California Press, and University Press North-East.

Before coming to MIT, Urbanowski’s publishing experience included editorial and management positions at the Educational Testing Service, The Free Press of Glencoe, and the College Division of Macmillan Publishers.

He is survived by his wife, Julia Blocksma; two daughters by a previous marriage, Alexandra Urbanowski and Tasha Urbanowski, as well as their husbands; two granddaughters; two stepchildren, Dewey Dunnington and Anneke Dunnington; and many cousins.

The family will hold a private ceremony in Vermont. Plans for a memorial service are forthcoming.

Arnold Weinberg, medical director at MIT Medical from 1986 to 2000, died on Monday, Sept. 28 at his home in Rockport, Massachusetts. He was 85.

Weinberg’s medical career spanned nearly 60 years. He received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University; graduated from Harvard Medical School; and in 1956 began an internship at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). After completing additional training in the Laboratory of Metabolic Enzymes at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, he returned to MGH, joining the hospital’s Division of Infectious Diseases in 1961. As an active participant in the clinical, research, and teaching activities of the Division, Weinberg designed and directed a course in microbiology and infectious diseases at Harvard Medical School and, with Robert Moellering, conducted some of the first research on mechanisms of antibiotic synergy in Enterococcus organisms. He became chair of medicine at Cambridge Hospital in 1971, vice chair of medicine at MGH in 1975, and medical director at MIT Medical in 1986. After retiring from MIT in 2000, he returned to MGH to teach and care for patients as an infectious disease consultant until his retirement just 15 months before his death.

“Arnie was a thoughtful, insightful, caring colleague, mentor, teacher, clinician, and friend,” says William Kettyle, who succeeded Weinberg as medical director at MIT Medical. Kettyle cites a number of important achievements that occurred under Weinberg’s leadership, including the start of 24-hour-per-day physician coverage at MIT Medical and a greatly enhanced relationship between MIT Medical and Partners HealthCare, resulting in increased access to superior subspecialty care for MIT patients. But Weinberg’s greatest legacy may be the establishment of a full-service, primary care facility on the campus of MIT Lincoln Laboratory, a project that involved many years of planning and discussion with laboratory and Institute leaders and coordination with a number of licensing agencies. MIT Medical/Lexington opened its doors to its first patients in 1999.

As a physician who had been involved with the Lincoln Laboratory community since 1991, Associate Medical Director David Diamond remembers Weinberg asking him to help develop the operational and staffing plans for the new Lexington clinic. “He gave us free range to design the service to meet the community’s needs,” Diamond recalls. “From Arnie, we always felt trust and support, never micromanaged nor second-guessed. He took the time to praise good work, to send the occasional personal letter, hand annotated, acknowledging some special event or service.”

Annette Jacobs, who served as executive director of MIT Medical under Weinberg from 1994 until 2000 remembers him as “a man with twinkling blue eyes and a marvelous deep laugh. Nothing challenged and pleased him more than working with others successfully to track down the cause of and treat an infection that was causing a patient harm, distress, discomfort.” He was an optimist about all things. That was one of his overriding qualities and strengths, adds Jacobs. “He was a partner, a colleague, a friend.”

Weinberg was a world traveler, an ambitious gardener, and an avid birdwatcher. According to an obituary published in The Boston Globe on Oct. 1, he continued to follow world events and sports until just a few days before his death and was particularly interested in seeing what the Cubs might do this year.

“Arnie was a mentor, teacher and friend to thousands of physicians over many decades,” notes Associate Medical Director Howard Heller. “He will be sorely missed.”

Weinberg is survived by his wife, Inge Toftegadd-Weinberg, and three daughters, Suzanne, Davida, and Carolyn. A celebration of his life will be held later this fall.

David J. Benney, professor emeritus of applied mathematics at MIT and former head of the Department of Mathematics, died on Oct. 9 after a period of declining health. He was 85.

Benney joined the MIT mathematics faculty in 1960 as assistant professor. He received a PhD in applied mathematics from MIT in 1959, studying under Chai-Chiao Lin, and continued at MIT as an instructor in 1959-60. He was promoted to full professor in 1966, and retired from MIT in 2010.

Benney chaired the Applied Mathematics Committee from 1983 to 85. He served as department head for two terms between 1989-99, a period of major transition for the department and MIT. Benney set the pace for future departmental administrations through major fundraising, building innovation, and furthering the department’s cross-disciplinary culture. He expanded the visiting professorship program and hosted several first-rate visitors. He oversaw the appointment of many leading scholars to the faculty, thereby establishing the current strength of the department.

David Benney’s research was highly original; as such, he made pioneering contributions to applied mathematics. He was at the leading edge of a paradigm shift in thinking about nonlinear wave systems in fluid dynamics. He not only rationalized important physical phenomena, but derived equations to describe them that became relevant in a wide variety of contexts, including aerodynamics, meteorology, oceanography, atmospheric sciences, and optics.

Benney’s principal research contributions lie in the mathematical analysis of nonlinear waves, hydrodynamic stability, and transitions to turbulence. Beginning with his PhD under the direction of C.C. Lin in the 1950s, Benney and early collaborators showed that nonlinear wave interactions were fundamental to the study of hydrodynamic stability, and could lead to the emergence of turbulent bursts, as were later observed in experiments done at the National Bureau of Standards. 

Benney did pioneering work clarifying how nonlinearity could affect the stability of flows including shear flows over plates. This was a major advance in the field and led to many important developments in the theory of turbulence. He continued his studies of hydrodynamical stability and transition through his mentoring of numerous doctoral students and postdoctoral associates.

His research on the dynamics of nonlinear waves had enormous impact in multiple fields. In his early work in 1962 describing nonlinear wave interactions in water waves, Benney developed key mathematical tools that were subsequently used extensively by the applied mathematics community. In 1964, he and his graduate student, J. Luke, derived an equation governing three dimensional weakly nonlinear shallow water waves. This equation, known as the “Benney-Luke Equation,” led to considerable research and applies in a variety of physical settings, including long wave interactions on flat beaches and long distance tsunami propagation. His further work on long waves was seminal: He showed how to find the governing equations in general circumstances. His related research on wave propagation in thin films has been used widely in many technological applications such as film-based photography and coating of materials. His research in the 1970s on large-amplitude long waves led him to formulate a novel system of equations, the so-called “Benney system,” that has since been the subject of many mathematical investigations.

Benney’s research was often ahead of his time. In 1967, with his first PhD student, A. Newell, Benney showed that a particular equation (known as the nonlinear Schrödinger equation) arises universally in diverse applications in nonlinear dispersive waves. Subsequent researchers found that this equation arises in the mathematical description of water waves, plasma physics and intense light waves. He soon followed with important work on three-dimensional modulated waves in water. With his student G. Roskes, he derived a system of equations, known as the "Benney-Roskes" equations, which has been widely used. Shortly thereafter, with his student M. Ablowitz, he formulated a novel class of quasi-periodic modulated wave trains. Years later, this too was found to arise in various physical systems, including fluid dynamics, optics and Bose-Einstein condensates.

Benney was a dedicated teacher and mentor who left an extraordinary legacy. He had a remarkable ability to work effectively with PhD students and he mentored 18 PhDs, producing 158 academic descendants. 

Benney was beloved of colleagues who knew him well and worked with him closely. One of his colleagues, (and a former student) says, “Dave was a modest man who had little to be modest about. With his gentle, self-effacing manner and humor, he tended to deflect any superlatives and accolades aimed in his direction. But in truth, he was a first rate leader: generous to all, regardless of rank, he had a strong moral compass, a principled view of life and a backbone of steel when it came to doing the right thing.”

A conference was held in 2000 in honor of his 70th birthday. An account of his many contributions can be found in "Research Contributions of David J. Benney," by M. Ablowitz, T. Akylas and C.C. Lin, in Studies in Applied Mathematics (Vol 108, 2002, p.1-6). That issue also contains a number of articles written by his former students and colleagues in his honor.

Benney served for 46 years (1968-2013) as managing editor of Studies in Applied Mathematics. Under his long tenure, he steered the journal to prominence, making it a leading journal in physical applied mathematics.

With Harvey Greenspan, he co-authored the widely-used text, "Calculus: An Introduction to Applied Mathematics," published in 1973 by McGraw Hill (later republished by Breukelin Press in 1997).

David John Benney, was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on April 8, 1930. He received his BS in mathematics (with first class honors) from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1950, followed by an MS in 1951. He studied at Cambridge University from 1952 to 1954, receiving a BA in mathematics, again with first-class honors. He returned to New Zealand as a lecturer at Canterbury University College (1955-57), before entering the doctoral program at MIT in applied mathematics.

David Benney is survived by his wife of 56 years, Elizabeth Matthews Benney; by his three children, Richard Benney of Stow, Vermont; Paul Benney of Bloomfield, Connecticut; and Antonia Benney of Longmeadow, Massachusetts; and by two grandsons, Luke and Jon.

A celebration of David Benney’s life will be held for family, friends and colleagues at his home on Oct. 18.

Professor Emeritus William M. Siebert passed away Sunday, Oct. 25, at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Massachusetts, at the age of 89. Siebert, the Ford Professor of Engineering emeritus, was widely known for his contributions to long-range radar, and for his dedication to undergraduate teaching.  

As the leader of the Radar Techniques Group at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the early 1950s, Siebert produced the first system capable of simultaneously measuring a target’s range and velocity. This work would earn him the 1988 IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society Pioneer Award for “contributions to pulse-compression techniques for radar systems.”

Born in Pittsburgh in 1925, Siebert joined the MIT faculty after completing his BS in 1946 and his ScD in 1952, both at MIT. In later years, his research used signal processing and communications system theory to understand the human ear through modeling the auditory system at the neural level. He was also interested in the pedagogical implications of using computer science for engineering teaching.

Siebert’s colleagues remember him as a popular lecturer who was devoted to his teaching. His 1985 textbook, "Circuits, Signals, and Systems," based on his decades of experience teaching introductory signals and systems courses, is now considered a standard in undergraduate teaching.

Siebert also worked to expand the depth and breadth of the EECS undergraduate curriculum. As computer science grew as a specialization within the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) throughout the 1970s and 1980s, it became increasingly difficult to fit the all of the necessary material into the undergraduate curriculum. Siebert envisioned a fifth-year master's program that would allow students intending to work as engineers to gain all of the necessary technical expertise, without sacrificing common core requirements. His vision informed the creation of EECS’s MEng program, and throughout the 1990s he served on the curriculum committee that designed the program.

“Professor Siebert played an important role in shaping the department’s undergraduate curriculum,” said Anantha Chandrakasan, head of EECS and the Joseph F. and Nancy P. Keithley Professor of Electrical Engineering. “He will be greatly missed by the many students, colleagues, and friends whose lives he impacted during his decades at MIT.”

Siebert was a Fellow of the IEEE, and was the Ford Professor of Engineering from 1984-1994. He retired from MIT in 2000 after teaching as a senior lecturer for several years.

He is survived by four children and eight grandchildren. For service information and an obituary visit deefuneralhome.com.

Donald Stidsen, the longtime exhibitions manager at the MIT Museum, died last Wednesday, Oct. 28, while driving to work with his wife, Kate McHugh.

"Don was valued for his expertise in lighting, color, framing, and in fabricating, building, hanging, and installing exhibitions," says John Durant, director of the MIT Museum. Along with others, Stidsen was honored with an Infinite Mile Award in 2011 for his role in mounting the museum’s exhibition to mark MIT’s 150th anniversary. His many colleagues and friends depended on him, however, not just for his vast artistic knowledge, but especially for his kindness, his humor, and his style, Durant says.

“In many ways,” Durant adds, “Don Stidsen was the MIT Museum: He was the longest-serving staff member we’ve ever had; and he saw the museum through any number of changes and developments. He represented the artisanal, ‘get-the-job-done’ tradition of museum professionalism, and his wide-ranging skills served both his colleagues and the museum’s visitors extremely well over the greater part of the museum’s history to date.”

Stidsen came to the MIT Museum as one of its earliest employees, in 1982, after working at the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse, New York, and the Dickson Mounds Museum, a branch of the Illinois State Museum, in Lewistown, Illinois. He held a BFA from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth in visual design, and a master’s degree in public visual communications from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.

During his 33-year career at MIT, Stidsen either installed or supervised over 300 MIT Museum exhibitions and displays, many illuminating the work of renowned artists, engineers, and designers, as well MIT faculty and students. Whether framing works by Ansel Adams or Berenice Abbott or helping other departments at MIT — and on occasion, at Harvard University, Harvard Business School, and the Waterworks Museum in Chestnut Hill — to create or hang exhibitions, Stidsen provided an exceptional level of care, professionalism, and expertise.

“He would spend hours studying photographs as he prepared to frame and hang them,” says Deborah Douglas, the museum’s director of collections. “He was simply the best lighting designer I have ever known, and likely will ever work with. With the flick of his wrist he could create a dramatic impact that I would never have thought about, much less thought possible.”

“The Compton Gallery and the Kurtz Gallery for Photography were amongst his favorite museum spaces, and were showcases for his great skill at two-dimensional installations,” Gary Van Zante, the museum’s curator of architecture and design, says. 

Stidsen also worked closely with kinetic artist Arthur Ganson, whose sculptures have long been on display at the MIT Museum, says Mary Leen, the museum’s associate director. “Additionally, Don was one of the few people in the country with expertise in the critical aspect of lighting holograms for viewing in a museum setting,” Leen says.

“Creative, smart, dedicated, patient, and cool-headed in the chaos of an exhibition installation, he was a particular master of color and light,” Douglas adds, noting that Stidsen worked with dozens of aspiring young artists and exhibitions professionals over the years.

Stidsen was a collaborator, and turned concepts into beautiful spaces where the public could reflect and enjoy learning. Lora Dunn-Hardy, who recently started working for Stidsen, says that he was, “a listener, a creator, a teacher, a mentor, an artist, and a friend.”

Stidsen also raised the visibility of children’s work, managing the exhibitions of the annual children’s drawing contest at MIT Medical; displaying woodworking projects by local elementary students at the museum; and archiving thousands of pictures of robots drawn by young museum visitors.

Ben Wiehe, manager of the Science Festival Alliance at the museum, says he found Stidsen to be eminently approachable when the two became colleagues a few years ago.

“He was just this cool person — he worked late into the night with Celtic music on, and the lights low in his office,” Wiehe says. “Sometimes, if you walked by you would see him perched on his stool, the tools of his trade scattered about: levels with particular markings, rulers and pencils, books piled high — plants, posters, coffee cups, and family photographs everywhere. For that moment you just wanted to be him, intent on his work, surrounded by all that he loved.”

“Don’s death has come as a tremendous shock to us all,” Durant says. “He will be sorely missed by both his colleagues and his many friends here at MIT.”

In addition to his wife, Kate McHugh, of Andover, Stidsen is survived by twin daughters, Hannah and Lizzie Stidsen. He often said that his greatest accomplishment was a life-saving organ donation to his daughter in 2006. Following his daughter’s illness, Stidsen and his family became involved as annual volunteers at Camp Sunshine, a retreat for children with life-threatening diseases and their families in Casco, Maine. Gifts in Stidsen’s memory may be made to Camp Sunshine.

A memorial service is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 14, at 11:00 a.m. at the North Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, 190 Academy Road, North Andover, Massachusetts.  

Professor Emeritus Alan Davison, a fellow of the Royal Society who elevated the art of inorganic chemical synthesis in his laboratories at MIT for more than four decades, died Saturday, Nov. 14, at the age of 79 after a long illness.

Davison carried out his undergraduate studies in chemistry at the University of Swansea in Wales receiving a BS in 1959, followed by a PhD in 1962 in inorganic chemistry from Imperial College London under Nobel laureate Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson. Wilkinson was renowned for having pioneered inorganic chemistry and homogeneous transition metal catalysis.

After two years working as a chemistry instructor at Harvard University, Davison joined the Department of Chemistry at MIT in 1964 as an assistant professor in inorganic chemistry. By 1974, he had risen through the ranks of tenure to full professor.

“I first met Alan when he joined the MIT faculty where I was a second-year graduate student in Al Cotton's lab,” says Stephen Lippard, the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry. “He was a great source of practical knowledge, a man with a wonderful sense of humor, and a kind and patient mentor to me and many other graduate students. We maintained close contact over many decades, published together when I was at Columbia and then later at MIT, and remained friends for over five decades.”

Throughout his illustrious career, Davison made research contributions spanning organometallic, boron, coordination, and bioinorganic chemistries. He was a serial innovator whose numerous seminal discoveries in diverse areas provided starting points for generations of followers. “His contributions to synthetic inorganic and medicinal chemistry were legion,” Lippard adds. “He will be greatly missed.”

“Alan was part of my life starting in 1967 and was involved in providing me with the opportunity to come to MIT in 1975,” remarks Richard Schrock, the Frederick G. Keyes Professor of Chemistry. “He became my friend, colleague, and mentor.”

Davison will be immortalized for his work with octahedral homoleptic isocyanide complexes of technetium(I). In collaboration with the late Professor Alun G. Jones, professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School, he brought rational synthetic understanding of technetium chemistry to the field of nuclear medicine. Davison and Jones’ efforts included development of the first technetium-based myocardial perfusion-imaging agent, Cardiolite, an important tool in clinical nuclear cardiology.

"Alan Davison was an intuitive chemical genius who was gifted from an early age with magic hands in the laboratory," says Christopher Cummins, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Chemistry. “He had a photographic memory, a sharp wit, and an unusually deep understanding of people combined with compulsive empathy. He was also an amazing storyteller. This set of traits is seldom combined in a single individual, but their coexistence in the person of Alan Davison explains why the many students for whom he served selflessly as unofficial mentor were so drawn to him and so valued his wisdom and insights."

Former graduate student Chris Orvig PhD ’81 remembers a particularly significant afternoon. It was the day he first met with Davison to be his teaching assistant, and Davison told him about his research project on the “new element” technetium. “I was hooked … for life,” Orvig says. “Alan’s breadth of knowledge in chemistry and his unselfish devotion to graduate students (both his own and those of other faculty) were legendary. He always had time to encourage and mentor — I was privileged to share a few years with him,” he says, adding, “I use the lessons of patience and understanding that I learned from him every day of my life.”

“Alan Davison's mentorship had a profound effect on his many students and postdocs,” says former Davison group member Mike Abrams PhD ’83. “His brilliance and chemical insight matched with humor and compassion were a precious gift to all of us.”

Throughout his illustrious career, Davison received many awards, including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship (1967); the Paul C. Aebersold Award for Outstanding Achievement in Basic Science Applied to Nuclear Medicine (1993); the Ernest H. Swift Lectureship at Caltech (1999); the American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention (2006); the Carothers Award for outstanding contributions and advances in industrial applications of Chemistry (2006); the Jacob Heskel Gabbay Award in Biotechnology and Medicine (2006); and the Society of Nuclear Medicine's Georg Charles de Hevesy Nuclear Pioneer Award (2009).

Former graduate student Jim Kronauge PhD '87 noted: “As well as having been an intuitive and enlightening chemist, Alan was also extremely modest. He never lobbied for any of the major awards he received, and did not think he had done anything special to deserve them. Alan was most proud of the students’ teaching awards, and of course his admission to the Royal Society. Those accolades, he felt, were the most benevolent recognition by the people he loved.”

On June 17, 2005, at a party held in his honor, attended by his many colleagues and former students, Davison was presented with a 20” x 20” bronze plaque bearing a description of his remarkable career. The plaque is mounted outside his old office on the 4th floor of Building 6.

Alan Davison is survived by his wife of 21 years, Lynne Davison of North Falmouth, Massachusetts; his children, Jackie, Fiona, Robert, Erin, Myles, Rowena and Ian; 16 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to the Alan Davison Fellowship Fund (#3296290) in his memory. Checks should be made payable to MIT and mailed to Liz McGrath, MIT Department of Chemistry, Room 18-388, 77 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139.

Funeral services will take place on Saturday, Nov. 21, at 11 a.m. at Chapman, Cole and Gleason, 584 Route 28A, West Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Sean Perry, a technical associate at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, died suddenly in his hometown of Mattapoisett, Massachusetts, on Monday, Nov. 23. He was 39.

For over 15 years, Perry worked in the laboratory of Susumu Tonegawa, the Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience at MIT. As a senior lab member, he was relied on for his expertise in a wide range of subjects, including IT support and data management, immunohistochemistry, molecular biology, imaging and microscopy, and animal handling and management. Perry's colleagues describe him as a patient and skilled teacher and coach, and say that he was responsible for training new lab members in fundamental skills. Lab alumni from around the world would come to him for advice, they say. 

“What struck me most about Sean was that he was a lifelong learner,” Tonegawa says. “Through his own initiative and intelligence, Sean mastered and took on a wide range of crucial roles in the lab, in particular maintenance of the lab’s servers and upkeep of advanced light microscopy equipment. We depended on him greatly these past years. The loss of his intellectual curiosity and kindness will leave an unfillable absence in my lab, and in the lives of those who knew him.”

Originally from Mattapoisett, Perry graduated from Old Rochester Regional High School and obtained an associate’s degree in culinary arts/chef training from Bristol Community College and a BS in biology with honors from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. After spending two years in the Tonegawa lab, Perry spent a year in Amsterdam in the laboratory of Christiaan Levelt at the Ophthalmic Research Institute (now the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience) before returning to MIT.

Perry excelled in a variety of pursuits outside of work, including power boating, sailing, and fishing. In his first year in the North Atlantic Shark Tournament, he was on the team of the Beagle, which finished in first place. He was also an accomplished competitive marksman, placing in the top five among New England marksmen in two separate competitions this past year. Perry was a former on-call firefighter in Mattapoisett, and plowed snow for the Mattapoisett Highway Department. His other pastimes included photography, playing piano, working with animals, welding, and metal sculpting.

“Sean knew so much about so many different topics, in and outside of the lab,” says Jennie Young, Perry’s friend and a research scientist in the Tonegawa lab. “People were asking him for advice all the time, on everything from cooking to DIY home improvement projects — and he was always happy to give it. I think everything came so naturally to him that it was easy for him to answer people's questions or to give advice.”

In addition to his parents, Diane and Dennis Perry, and his sister, Laura Perry, Perry is survived by his colleague and cousin, Candy Carr, his godparents, Kathy Carr and David Perry, and his uncle, Andy Carr, as well as an extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Family and friends will be received on Friday, Dec. 4, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Saunders-Dwyer Funeral Home at 50 County Rd. in Mattapoisett. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, Dec. 5, at 9:30 a.m. at the funeral home, with burial following in Cushing Cemetery in Mattapoisett. Remembrances may be made in Perry’s name to a charity of the donor's choice.

Stanford Anderson, professor of history and architecture and a former head of the Department of Architecture died on Jan. 5. He was 81.

One of the country’s leading architectural historians, Anderson joined the faculty in 1963 for an extraordinary career at MIT that spanned more than 50 years. His research and writing concerned architectural theory, early modern architecture in northern Europe, American architecture and urbanism, and epistemology and historiography. But Anderson’s profound contributions as an author and intellectual, his colleagues say, are matched by his influence on MIT and how he formed the department’s shape and stature today.

“Stanford's contributions over the past 50 years were enormous. He was a distinguished professor, significant scholar, generous mentor, and the long-term intellectual consciousness of the department,” says J. Meejin Yoon, professor and head of the Department of Architecture. “Many of us, directly or indirectly, are deeply indebted to his stewardship, generosity, and legacy.”

Anderson served as head of the Department of Architecture for 13 years, from 1991 through 2004, as well as chair of the joint Harvard/MIT Aga Khan Program Committee from 1992-99. In 1974, he co-founded the department’s History, Theory and Criticism (HTC) Program with architectural historian Henry Millon and art historians Wayne Andersen and Rosalind Krauss, then directed the program from 1974-91 and again in 1995-96. Under his leadership, HTC grew to have an unusually large impact on the field, given its modest size.

"Stan Anderson was a historian and historiographer, a critical interlocutor of contemporary practice, and most notably an educator’s educator," says Hashim Sarkis, dean of the School of Architecture and Planning. "His leadership of the History, Theory and Criticism discipline group made MIT one of the strongest bastions of architectural history in the world and has graduated generations of preeminent historians and theorists whose impact on the field continues to grow. His legacy is unmatched."

Anderson authored numerous articles and books. With his book, "Eladio Dieste: Innovation in Structural Art" (2004, Princeton Architectural Press), the first comprehensive analysis of Dieste’s work to be published in English, he helped to secure a place in history for one of the lesser-known geniuses of 20th-century architecture and engineering. In "Peter Behrens and a New Architecture for the Twentieth Century" (2000, MIT Press) he assimilated decades of research into a nuanced, definitive work on one of the emblematic figures in the development of architectural modernism.

According to one of his former students, current MIT Professor Mark Jarzombek, “Stanford Anderson championed an approach to design that was not a one-off, but that could stand the test of time as a research activity that allowed multiple factors and issues to be taken into consideration.”

In 1997, in testament to his effect on those around him, Anderson’s former students produced a book of essays in his honor: "The Education of the Architect: Historiography, Urbanism and the Growth of Knowledge" (MIT Press). During his career, he also received MIT's Graduate Student Teaching Award in 1989 and the King Fahd Award for Design and Research in Islamic Architecture, 1985-86.

In 2004, he received the prestigious Topaz Medallion for Excellence in Architectural Education from the Board of Directors of the American Institute of Architects and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. The Topaz Medallion honors an individual who has made outstanding contributions to architectural education, whose teaching has influenced a range of students, and who has broadly impacted architectural education over a long career.

“Stan always understood how transformative it would be on both sides — the critical perspective of history being brought into focus for designers and the feedback of living design problems being brought to bear on the practice of academic historians,” said Caroline Jones, a professor and current director of the HTC Program, at Anderson’s retirement in 2014. “This little PhD program changed what it meant to be an architect coming out of MIT. It also raised the bar for how architecture schools elsewhere needed to train tomorrow’s designers.”

Anderson is survived by his wife of 32 years, Nancy Royal, and by daughter Kimberly Mims; son Teague Mims; daughter-in-law Martina Mims; granddaughter Karolina Mims; grandson Marek Mims; and by his brother, Charles Anderson, and his wife, Margaret; niece Kristen Kalbrener; and nephews Mark and Peter Anderson.

A memorial service for Anderson will be held Feb. 26 in MIT's Kresge Chapel beginning at 3 p.m. A reception will follow. Donations in his memory can be made to MIT Department of Architecture.

For any questions about the memorial service, contact Anne Deveau at (617) 258-8438.

Marvin Minsky, a mathematician, computer scientist, and pioneer in the field of artificial intelligence, died at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital on Sunday, Jan. 24, of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 88.

Minsky, a professor emeritus at the MIT Media Lab, was a pioneering thinker and the foremost expert on the theory of artificial intelligence. His 1985 book “The Society of Mind” is considered a seminal exploration of intellectual structure and function, advancing understanding of the diversity of mechanisms interacting in intelligence and thought. Minsky’s last book, “The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind,” was published in 2006.

Minsky viewed the brain as a machine whose functioning can be studied and replicated in a computer — which would teach us, in turn, to better understand the human brain and higher-level mental functions: How might we endow machines with common sense — the knowledge humans acquire every day through experience? How, for example, do we teach a sophisticated computer that to drag an object on a string, you need to pull, not push — a concept easily mastered by a two-year-old child?

"Very few people produce seminal work in more than one field; Marvin Minksy was that caliber of genius," MIT President L. Rafael Reif says. "Subtract his contributions from MIT alone and the intellectual landscape would be unrecognizable: without CSAIL, without the Media Lab, without the study of artificial intelligence and without generations of his extraordinarily creative students and protégés. His curiosity was ravenous. His creativity was beyond measuring. We can only be grateful that he made his intellectual home at MIT.”

A native New Yorker, Minsky was born on Aug. 9, 1927, and entered Harvard University after returning from service in the U.S. Navy during World War II. After graduating from Harvard with honors in 1950, he attended Princeton University, receiving his PhD in mathematics in 1954. In 1951, his first year at Princeton, he built the first neural network simulator.

Minsky joined the faculty of MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1958, and co-founded the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (now the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory) the following year. At the AI Lab, he aimed to explore how to endow machines with human-like perception and intelligence. He created robotic hands that can manipulate objects, developed new programming frameworks, and wrote extensively about philosophical issues in artificial intelligence.

“Marvin Minsky helped create the vision of artificial intelligence as we know it today,” says CSAIL Director Daniela Rus, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “The challenges he defined are still driving our quest for intelligent machines and inspiring researchers to push the boundaries in computer science.”

Minsky was convinced that humans will one day develop machines that rival our own intelligence. But frustrated by a shortage of both researchers and funding in recent years, he cautioned, “How long this takes will depend on how many people we have working on the right problems.”

In 1985, Minsky became a founding member of the MIT Media Lab, where he was named the Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, and where he continued to teach and mentor until recently.

Professor Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder and chairman emeritus of the Media Lab, says: “Marvin talked in riddles that made perfect sense, were always profound and often so funny that you would find yourself laughing days later. His genius was so self-evident that it defined ‘awesome.’ The Lab bathed in his reflected light.”

In addition to his renown in artificial intelligence, Minsky was a gifted pianist — one of only a handful of people in the world who could improvise fugues, the polyphonic counterpoint that distinguish Western classical music. His influential 1981 paper “Music, Mind and Meaning” illuminated the connections between music, psychology, and the mind.

Other achievements include Minsky’s role as the inventor of the earliest confocal scanning microscope. He was also involved in the inventions of the first “turtle,” or cursor, for the LOGO programming language, with Seymour Papert, and the “Muse” synthesizer for musical variations, with Ed Fredkin.

Minsky received the world’s top honors for his pioneering work and mentoring role in the field of artificial intelligence, including the A.M. Turing Award — the highest honor in computer science — in 1969.

In addition to the Turing Award, Minsky received honors over the years including the Japan Prize; the Royal Society of Medicine’s Rank Prize (for Optoelectronics); the Optical Society of America’s R.W. Wood Prize; MIT’s James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award; the Computer Pioneer Award from IEEE Computer Society; the Benjamin Franklin Medal; and, in 2014, the Dan David Foundation Prize for the Future of Time Dimension titled “Artificial Intelligence: The Digital Mind,” and the BBVA Group’s BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Lifetime Achievement Award.

Minsky is survived by his wife, Gloria Rudisch Minsky, MD, and three children: Henry, Juliana, and Margaret Minsky. The family requests that memorial contributions be directed to the Marvin Minsky Foundation, which supports research in artificial intelligence, including support for graduate students.

A celebration of Minsky’s life will be held at the MIT Media Lab later this year.

John Wyatt ’68, who served as a professor of electrical engineering for 36 years, passed away at home in the company of his family on Wednesday, Feb. 3. He was 69.

Wyatt was a devoted researcher who spent decades developing retinal implants to restore sight to people affected by age-related macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, the two leading causes of blindness worldwide. An expert in circuits, his work focused on developing a chip that could be implanted in the retina to transmit visual information to the optic nerve.

A native of Nashville, Tennessee, Wyatt received a BS from MIT in 1968, an MS from Princeton University 1970, and a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1979, all in electrical engineering. He joined the MIT Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) faculty in 1979, and retired from MIT in June 2015.

Wyatt was a driven researcher who pursued big ideas. In 1989, he cofounded the Boston Retinal Implant Project with Joseph Rizzo of the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, where he led the engineering team. Their group was the first to use microfabricated electrode arrays to electrically stimulate the human retina. Wyatt and Rizzo also cofounded Bionic Eye Technologies, which is working to commercialize their work to help the blind.

Their prosthetic design uses a camera embedded in a pair of glasses worn by the user to “see.” The camera then transmits visual information to a chip embedded in the retina, with the goal of restoring enough sight that a user might be able to find a door in a room, or walk down the street without the aid of a cane.

More recent advances in microfabrication and packaging made by their team led to the development of a prosthetic with the largest number of individually-controllable stimulation channels of any neural prosthetic, an advance that could allow a substantially greater level of vision to be obtained. 

“I said, that sounds really like science fiction. I spent about three months trying to think about why it couldn’t be done, and I really couldn’t find a reason it couldn’t be done,” Wyatt remembered about his reaction to the implant’s concept in a 2012 video. “So I said, ‘OK, I’ll give it a shot,’ and I’ve been at it for 23 years.”

Wyatt did his first research on the retina during his graduate studies at the University of California at Berkeley, in the lab of Professor Frank Werblin. His doctoral dissertation included a study of how circuits could be used to model forces and flows in biological processes, and he developed this work further during his postdoctoral work at the Medical College of Virginia.

In 1990, Wyatt was appointed EECS's first Adler Scholar. Named for Richard B. Adler, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and a friend of Wyatt’s, the appointment allows MIT faculty to take a class for one semester as a student.

In an article about the Adler Scholar program published the same year, The New York Times described Wyatt’s delight at the chance to be a student again: “I don't want to be a research supervisor particularly. I want to be a researcher." He enrolled in 6.866 (Machine Vision), a course taught by Berthold K.P. Horn.

In 1998 the Retinitis Pigmentosa International Foundation awarded him the Jules Stein Living Tribute Award. 

“John devoted his research to improving the quality of life for millions of people affected by blindness,” wrote David Perreault, associate department head of EECS, in an email to faculty. “He will be long remembered by the many colleagues, students, and patients whose lives he touched.”

Wyatt is survived by his wife, Christie Baxter; his daughter, Julia Wyatt; and stepson Andrew Cook, all of Sudbury; and his brother James Wyatt and nephew Timothy Wyatt, both of Berlin, Germany.

A funeral service for Wyatt will be held on Tuesday, Feb. 9, at 11 a.m. at the First Parish Church in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Calling hours will be the previous evening, Monday, Feb. 8, from 5 to 8 p.m., at the Duckett Funeral Home in Sudbury.

Frank E. Perkins, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering and former associate provost and dean for graduate education at MIT, died March 5 at age 82 following a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease.

The son of Frank Hall Perkins and Ethel (Newsome) (Perkins) Knight, Perkins was a 1951 graduate of Brockton High School, in Brockton, Massachusetts, where he served on the student Executive Committee and received the Edwin P. Linfield scholarship. He later attended MIT, where he earned bachelor’s (1955), master’s (1959), and ScD (1966) degrees, all in the field of civil engineering. 

With the exception of two years’ active duty with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers — much of which was spent supervising airfield construction in Greenland — the major portion of Perkins’ career was spent at MIT, where he was appointed to the faculty in 1966. He subsequently served as head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; associate provost; and, for 12 years, as dean for graduate education. His principal research and teaching interests were in the areas of hydraulics, hydrology, and water resource analysis, with special emphasis on the development of computer models.  He also conducted research on water resources development in several South American countries, and on issues of dam safety in the United States.

Perkins took a particular interest in the improvement of teaching at MIT and was instrumental in creating an annual teacher-training workshop for graduate student teaching assistants. By his admission, his proudest achievement was his receipt, in 1965, of MIT’s Goodwin Medal, which is given annually in recognition of “conspicuously effective teaching by a member of the graduate student teaching staff.”

While serving as dean for graduate education, he was active in the Association of Graduate Schools (AGS) in the Association of American Universities, and served for one term as the AGS national president. In 1995, Perkins was honored by MIT’s graduate students through their creation of the Frank E. Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising, which is given each year to a professor who has served as an excellent advisor and mentor for graduate students.

In 1977, Perkins served on the National Research Council’s Committee on the Safety of Dams and was chair of the Federal Dam Safety Independent Review Panel in 1978. He was president of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section (BSCES) of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in 1981, and served on its board of directors from 1978 until 1983. He played an important role in the creation of Boston Society of Civil Engineers’ Computer Division and ASCE’s Management Division. In 1982, and again in 1992, he received BSCES’s Ralph W. Horne Award, which recognizes unpaid public service.

In addition to his active roles in ASCE, BSCES, and AGS, Perkins was at various times an active member of the International Association for Hydraulic Research, the American Water Resources Association, and the American Geophysical Union. He served on the Board of Visitors to the Air Force Institute of Technology, the Board of Foster Wheeler Corporation, and the Board of Managers of the Evanswood Center for Older Adults.

Perkins chaired the Brockton Conservation Commission for a period of five years (1972-77) and later, from 1996 to 2003, served as chair of the City of Brockton’s state-mandated Water Commission. Under his leadership of these commissions, the city made significant progress through the purchase of three parcels of conservation land and expanded the system’s safe yield through addition of a modern desalination plant.

Known to many of his friends as “Ed,” Perkins spent most of his life as a resident of Brockton. Since 2004, he and his wife of 59 years, Geraldine “Gerry” (Gurney) Perkins, had lived in the Stone Meadow community of Bridgewater. He was a lifelong member of the First Baptist Church of Brockton, where he served as deacon, trustee, youth adviser, and participant in numerous other ad hoc activities.

In addition to his wife, Perkins is survived by his son, David, daughter-in-law Jennifer Ramsey, and their children, Zoe, Max, and Lucy of Kensington, New Hampshire; and son James and his daughter, Olivia, of Avon, New York. He is also survived by a sister, Betty Gilson of Bridgewater, Massachusetts; a brother, Robert Perkins of Lakeville, Massachusetts; and numerous nieces and nephews.

Visitation will be held on Friday, March 18, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Dahlborg-MacNevin Funeral Home, 647 Main Street, Brockton. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, March 19 at 10 a.m. at the First Baptist Church of Brockton, 256 Forest Avenue, Brockton. Interment will take place at Pine Hill Cemetery, West Bridgewater, immediately following the funeral service.

In lieu of flowers, individuals are invited to contribute to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, 1359 Broadway, Suite 1509, New York, NY 10018.

The influential MIT economist and public intellectual Lester Thurow, whose work addressed the many consequences of an increasingly global economy, died on Friday at his home in Westport, Massachusetts. Thurow, who also served as dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, was 77 years old.

Having focused on income distribution early in his scholarly career, Thurow broadened his interests over time and became a leading public voice examining many of the defining features of globalization, including the competitiveness of national economies at a time of industrial change, and the welfare of workers, including those affected by the shift of jobs around the world.

In many years of engagement with the public and government officials — and in a series of bestselling books — Thurow advocated a distinctive set of policy ideas that defied simple political labeling. He supported policies that would help society and corporations make long-term investments in research in order to spur growth. At the same time, in his writings and public lectures, he also emphasized the importance of education for all, contending that it would help workers in a rapidly evolving and technologizing world.

The connecting thread in all of Thurow’s work, by his own account, was a straightforward and idealistic impulse: He wanted “to make the world better,” as he told Fortune magazine in 1987, soon after assuming the Sloan deanship.

"Lester Thurow spent his life trying to make society more farsighted and more fair,” said MIT President L. Rafael Reif. “As a member of the faculty, as dean of MIT Sloan, as a successful author, and as an advisor to political giants, he embodied MIT’s mission to advance knowledge and educate students in service to the nation and the world. He left an indelible mark in the world of economic policy, and his pioneering instinct for building connections with people, institutions, and ideas around the world is woven deep into the daily life of MIT.”

Into the public sphere

Thurow was born in Livingston, Montana, in 1938, and grew up in the state, where his father was a Methodist minister. Thurow worked in the local copper mines for four summers as a young man, but as an excellent student soon found himself on a fast academic track. He received his BA in political economy from Williams College, won a Rhodes Scholarship, and earned a master’s in philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE) from Balliol College of Oxford University.

After Oxford, he received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1964, where he subsequently started his teaching career. Thurow moved to MIT in 1968 and remained at the Institute thereafter, with appointments in both the Department of Economics and in Sloan.

Highly active as both an administrator and faculty member, Thurow served as dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management from 1987 to 1993; he also held a chaired faculty position as the Jerome and Dorothy Lemelson Professor of Management and Economics Emeritus.

Thurow’s work was marked by a career-long commitment to public engagement. In addition to writing his widely read books, he advised presidential candidates and maintained a decades-long dialogue with policymakers.

By Thurow’s account, his interest in bringing economics to the public sphere was intensified in the 1970s, when he failed to land a position in the Carter Administration and chose to influence economic discussion through other avenues.

“I decided that if I could not have the king’s ear, I would talk to the public,” Thurow told The New York Times in 1997. “That’s the other way to have an impact on the economic system.”

Thurow’s books for general audiences in the 1990s are among his most widely read. These include “Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle Among Japan, Europe, and America” (1992), which surveyed the post-Cold War economic landscape and suggested that investment and education would be keys to renewing developed economies; “The Future of Capitalism: How Today’s Economic Forces Shape Tomorrow’s World” (1996); and “Building Wealth: The New Rules for Individuals, Companies, and Nations in a Knowledge-Based Economy.”

Over time, Thurow maintained the view that a series of sensible policy decisions could produce a globalized economy that would be fairer to all parties, from management to employees.

“There is no silver bullet, but there are many things that we can do to make globalization more inclusive than it would be if we just sat back and let it happen,” Thurow told CIO magazine in a 2003 interview.

Institution building

In concert with his view that the U.S. could help shape globalization in productive ways, Thurow worked vigorously over an extended period of time to help forge MIT’s relationships with the wider world. In particular, he helped develop MIT Sloan’s programs in China.

“Lester did not simply serve the School and the Institute, nor did he simply serve the field of economics; he was a visionary with the foresight to develop long-lasting and deeply meaningful relationships that united Chinese educational institutions together with MIT Sloan as the barriers between East and West began to crumble,” said David Schmittlein, John C Head III Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management, in a statement released to the Sloan community.

“In partnership with our faculty and alumni,” Schmittlein added, “Lester made major progress in the development of Sloan’s international presence, and in particular the MIT-China Management Education Project.”

Thurow is survived by his wife, Anni; his brother, Chuck; his sons, Torben and Ethan, and daughters-in-law, Kornelia and Ina; his step-children, Yaron and Yael; and his seven grandchildren. 

Plans for a celebration of Lester’s life are forthcoming.

Koichi Masubuchi, professor emeritus of ocean engineering, passed away on April 1 at the age of 92 in Concord, Massachusetts. 

Masubuchi was a leading expert in welding science and fabrication technology whose work helped to progress the understanding of welding and the important role it plays in marine and aerospace structures. 

Born in Otaru, Japan, in 1924, Masubuchi served in the Japanese Navy during World War II as a ship fitter in a naval shipyard. He earned a bachelor's degree and a master’s degree from the University of Tokyo, both in naval architecture, and received a PhD in engineering from Tokyo University. He worked for five years as the chief of design and fabrication in the welding division of the Transportation Technical Research Institute in Tokyo before taking leave to serve in several different positions at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Ohio until 1962. In 1963, he moved back to Ohio to serve at Battelle Memorial Institute once again until 1968, when he started as an associate professor of naval architecture at MIT.  In 1971, he was promoted to professor in the Department of Ocean Engineering, which later became part of the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He retired from MIT in 2001. 

Masubuchi was interested in welding from a young age and spent most of his career at Batelle and MIT dedicated to progressing the science and engineering of welding fabrication. He spent his first 10 years at MIT focused on solving welding problems NASA was having with its Apollo project. During his 50 years conducting research on welding technology, Masubuchi authored or co-authored more than 220 papers and supervised more than 130 theses. His main areas of expertise were in the heat flow, residual stresses, and distortion in weldments; the fracture of welded structures; and the welding technologies for underwater and space applications. 

Masubuchi served as president of the Japanese Association of Greater Boston from 1972 until 1981, and he started the Japanese Language School in 1975. 

He was a fellow of the American Welding Society and received the Order of Sacred Treasure Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon from the Government of Japan for advancing welding technology and promoting friendship between Japan and the United States. 

Masubuchi was also a member of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, ASM International, the Marine Technology Society, the Society of Experimental Stress Analysis, and the Society of Naval Architects of Japan. 

Individuals wanting to make a donation in Masubuchi’s memory may send gifts to the Masubuchi Fund c/o Japanese Language School of Greater Boston at 792 Massachusetts Ave., Arlington, MA 02476. The fund was established to support the Japanese Language School of Greater Boston in honor of Masubuchi.

Sergeant John Carr of the MIT Police, who began his quarter-century career serving MIT in September 1991, died Sunday, May 22, at Salem Hospital, following a long struggle with cancer. He was 52.

For much of his tenure, Carr was a patrol officer on the main campus, working the evening shift. He was promoted to the rank of sergeant on March 14. His colleagues remember him as dedicated and dependable, and as someone who never hesitated to assist others, whether MIT students, staff, or his police colleagues.

“Sergeant Carr was a reliable officer, and always there to provide calm leadership,” says Administrative Captain Cheryl Vossmer of the MIT Police.

A Beverly, Massachusetts, resident who was born in Seoul, South Korea, Carr worked to forge connections with the people and communities he served. For example, he often participated in “meet and greet” events with MIT students. He was also a licensed emergency medical technician (EMT), a firearms instructor, and a member of the American Society of Law Enforcement Training.

Carr received the MIT Police Medal of Valor in 2007 for displaying heroism and “going above and beyond the call of duty.” During his career with the MIT Police, Carr received two letters of commendation for heroic acts. In one instance, in 2000, Carr responded to a fire at an MIT dorm that housed 93 students; he, along with six of his MIT Police colleagues, helped put out the blaze with fire extinguishers. He and his colleagues were later transported to local hospitals for smoke inhalation.

Carr served in the U.S. Army, 187th Infantry Brigade, and then continued his military service for two decades in the U.S. Army Reserve. He was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army Reserve, with the rank of major.

Carr held an associate’s degree in criminal justice from Valley Forge Military College in Pennsylvania, a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts at Boston, and a master’s degree in criminal justice from Ashwood University in Florida.

A visitation and wake will be held Friday, May 27, at Campbell’s Funeral Home in Beverly, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.; a funeral service will follow on Saturday, May 28, at St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Church in Beverly at 10 a.m.

Carr is survived by his father, George W. Carr Sr.; his brother, George W. Carr; and by three sisters, Harriett E. Carr, Jeanette E. Nye, and Veronica E. Carr. He is also survived by three nephews, Crew P. W. Ryan, Aidan Leroux, and Nathan Nye, and by two nieces, Tia Nye and Ava Nye.

Contributions in Carr’s memory may be made to the American Cancer Society or the National Museum of the U.S. Army.

Suzanne Hammond Corkin, professor of neuroscience emerita in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, died of liver cancer on May 24. She was 79.

To the end of her life, Corkin retained her sense of humor and adventure. She was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the only child of Mabelle Dowling Hammond and Lester Hartz Hammond. She received her PhD from McGill University in 1964 under the tutelage of Brenda Milner.

Corkin's research during her 51-year career at MIT focused on the study of patients with neurological disease, with the goal of linking specific cognitive processes, particularly memory, to discrete brain circuits. She was well known for her investigation of the famous amnesic patient, H.M., whom she met in 1962 and studied until his death in 2008.

Corkin also described the long-term consequences of head injury in World War II and Korean War veterans, and the safety and efficacy of a psychosurgical procedure, cingulotomy, in patients with medication resistant psychiatric disease. Her subsequent research focused on the neural underpinnings of age-related degenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. She and her colleagues developed behavioral tasks that elucidated the nature and severity of individual Parkinson's and Alzheimer's patients’ cognitive and psychiatric deficits, and innovative neuroanatomical labeling tools for visualizing brain regions that are targeted by Parkinson's or Alzheimer's pathophysiology.

The recipient of numerous awards, Corkin was especially proud to receive the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Undergraduate Advising Award at MIT in 2011. She was a freshman advisor for 17 years, and served on several Institute and departmental committees.

On May 18, she joyfully celebrated her 79th birthday in the company of family, friends, and her beloved dog Trooper, whom she rescued from the streets of Ecuador. In keeping with her commitment to understanding memory and other aspects of brain function, Corkin arranged for her brain to be donated for research.

Corkin is survived by beloved sons J. Zachary Corkin II; Damon Lester Corkin and his wife Angela Adriana Veliz-Corkin; daughter Jocelyn Hammond Corkin and her husband Peter Mortimer; and adored grandchildren Charles Corkin III, Colette Sage Corkin, Wesley Donald Corkin, Pia Frances Corkin Mortimer, Xavier Charles Corkin Mortimer, Olivia Suzanne Corkin, and Stella Paz Corkin.

Gifts in Corkin’s memory may be made to MIT to support minority women students in science (contact: bonnyk@mit.edu); to the Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston (under “designated giving” at mspca.org/donate-now); or to Grassroots Wildlife Conservation.

A memorial service will be held in the fall.

Willem Van Rensselaer Malkus, emeritus professor of mathematics at MIT, died in Falmouth, Massachusetts, on Saturday May 28, at the age of 92. He was a professor of applied mathematics at MIT from 1969 until his retirement in 1996.

Malkus was a physical applied mathematician who focused on problems in thermal convection, magnetohydrodynamics, and geophysical fluid dynamics. A pioneer in fluid dynamics, he inspired students and colleagues alike to delve deeply into the important problems of his time.

As a graduate student, Willem worked with the preeminent physicist Enrico Fermi, who convinced him to begin his research career by trying to discover magnetic monopoles. While this was a risky and ultimately unsuccessful venture, it left Malkus with an abiding skepticism that he put to good use throughout his career. Following graduate school, Malkus left particle physics and turned his attention to a more tangible subject — fluid mechanics, where he was particularly interested in its geophysical applications.

Malkus made fundamental contributions to the theory of thermal convection, turbulence, magnetohydrodynamics, elliptical flows, and their applications in geophysics. He was particularly focused on the magnetic dynamo problem, as concerns the manner in which the motion of an electrically conducting fluid can generate a magnetic field. In 1968, he proposed a novel theory for a precessionally-forced geodynamo, well known to workers in the field.

In the early 1960s, Malkus struggled, along with Edward Lorenz, to understand the origins of what is now widely known as “chaos.” With his colleague Louis Howard, he invented a simple mechanical device, known as the “Malkus-Howard-Lorenz Waterwheel,” that realized Lorenz’s famous equations. Malkus joked that Lorenz’s equations much better described his mechanical toy than the phenomenon they were intended to describe, atmospheric convection. Malkus’s waterwheel became a paradigmatic realization of a chaotic system, and is now widely used in the teaching of chaos theory.

Throughout his career, Malkus worked on diverse problems, making decisive and deep contributions to our understanding of a range of subtle phenomena. His work was characterized by a combination of careful experiments and theoretical modeling designed to illustrate fundamental principles. He delighted in variational principles and was always seeking new applications for them, especially in deducing criteria for hydrodynamic stability. His work continues to inspire applied mathematicians, geophysicists, and the wider scientific community.

Malkus was a founding member of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics (GFD) Program at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in 1959. This program has been hugely influential in growing an entire community of scholars. In 1959, GFD was a new field — but over the years more than 450 student fellows and 1,000 visitors have participated in the program. Malkus was a regular at the GFD summer lectures at Walsh Cottage for almost 50 years. In 2008, the GFD program’s founding members, including George Veronis of Yale University and Louis Howard of MIT and Florida State University, received the Excellence in Geophysical Education Award by the American Geophysical Union.

When he arrived at MIT, Malkus founded the Applied Math Laboratory, where he carried out a variety of fluid mechanics experiments, including seminal experiments on thermal convection and elliptical flows. He recognized the value of an experimental facility to the subject of applied mathematics, and encouraged and supported its use by his students and colleagues.

During his time at MIT, Malkus twice served as chair of the Applied Mathematics Committee: 1977-79 and 1984-87. He was a beloved supervisor of graduate students, many of whom now occupy leading academic positions. They all saw at first-hand how his passion for scientific inquiry burned strongly — remaining undimmed even into his 90s — and were inspired by the high scientific standards he demanded of himself and invariably of any seminar speaker. 

He was strongly influenced by his mother, Alida Sims Malkus, who was an accomplished author and daring traveler, and who raised Malkus and his brother alone through the Great Depression. Malkus’ passion for fluid dynamics was matched by a love of sailing in the waters that surround Woods Hole. While sometimes his crew showed reservations, Malkus was always eager to share what strong winds, hard currents, and narrow passages could teach about dynamical systems. In his later years, when his gait on land was unsteady and reaching the boat was a challenge, Malkus persisted and was stable and at ease under sail in Vineyard Sound.

Willem V. R. Malkus was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 19, 1923. He studied at the University of Michigan and Cornell University, and was admitted to the PhD program in physics at the University of Chicago, to study under Enrico Fermi. Malkus received his PhD in physics in 1950.

He was appointed assistant professor at the University of Chicago from 1950 to 1951 and later joined the staff at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute as a research associate from 1951 to 1956, and was promoted to physical oceanographer from 1956 to 1962. From 1958 to 1960, he was jointly appointed professor of oceanography at MIT. In 1960, he joined the faculty at the University of California at Los Angeles as a professor of geophysics and was a professor of geophysics and mathematics there from 1967 to 1969, before joining the applied mathematics faculty at MIT.

Malkus was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1964. He was also a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Geophysical Union. He received two Guggenheim Fellowships in 1972 and 1979. In 1972, he was elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Malkus is survived by his wife of 51 years, Ulla C. Malkus of Falmouth, Massachusetts; children David S. Malkus of Madison, Wisconsin; Steven W. Malkus of Falmouth, Massachusetts; Karen E. Malkus-Benjamin of Brewster, Massachusetts; Per N. Malkus of Carrboro, North Carolina; and grandchildren Christopher B. Malkus, Annelise C. Malkus, Byron F. Malkus, Renata L. Malkus, Michael B. Herrmann, Esme E. Herrmann, and Kira A. Malkus. 

A family memorial is under consideration. Further information will be posted on the MIT Department of Mathematics website.