Biographies of Students in the Six-Year PhD Program

Cornell University, 1966 - 1975

"The Phuds"

Ithaca Journal Articles and More from Neil Blumberg

Yearly Reports to the Ford Foundation

An Alternate Take on the Res Club Fire

Letter to a Friend that Mark Heumann Wrote Soon After the Res Club fire

Chronology of the Fire and Its Investigation by Bill Fogle

Note: most of the accounts below were [first] written in 2002-2003. So if someone says their son is 12, it's probably relative to 2002.

The First Year, 1966

Judy Abrahamsen:

Ann Agranoff:

Diego Benardete:

here.

Edgar Blaustein:

Neil Blumberg:

Marie Boyko:

Mark Budwig:

Howard Bursen:

Matthew Clark:

Loren Cobb:

Loren has written a long reminiscence on Joe Savago and the Phud proogram, too long to fit here, which I have placed here.

Philip Cohen:

R. Jeffrey Dean:

Glenn Dodd:

Update 2013: This is from a Vero Beach Computer Club Bulletin in 1991:
Glennon B. Dodd
June 24, 1948 - February 2, 1991
In February of 1991, Glen Dodd was killed in a freak accident while on vacation in Pennsylvania. He was hiking in the woods when a tree fell on him. Glen was our first president after the formal organization of our group and had been president for five years. He was the Guru of our group. He had the knack of explaining complicated computer problems in language fully understood by the layman. He also kept us up-to-date on the new happenings in the computer world. Our members in those days had almost a reverence toward him.

Margaret Ferguson:

Update February 2023: I retired from full time teaching in 2017 and am now working on a book, reading, writing letters of recommendation, and doing political work for Indivisible Yolo (my California County which is heavily into housing and environmental issues).

Josh Freeman:

Joshua Freeman, MD. Professor and Deputy Chair, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. email: freemanj@uthscsa.edu

Gene Fry:

In 1981 I returned to Cornell, where I finally got my PhD in 1989. There I met my wife Jane, from neighboring Oklahoma. I ran some Finger Lakes road races. My theses were on solar water heating and nuclear economics. Jane got her PhD a few months before me, in environmental education.

In 1988-9, I was policy director for Maine's energy office. In 1990 I joined the staff at the Massachusetts utility commission (commuting by bus, subway, and walking). I began valuing air pollution (including CO2). I ended analyzing stranded costs and approving power plant sales kubler from deregulation. Thru it all, I evaluated savings from the nation's premier energy efficiency programs. In later years I helped design the programs. Our house is well insulated. All the lights are compact fluorescent. The trees are bigger than the house.

I left the commission in 2003, after bicycling from Seattle to Boston with our son Jeff, now 20. Jane and daughter Ayla (now 16) joined us by car from Grand Forks to Lake Superior. Now I'm a consultant. Mostly I write about climate change for environmental newsletters. My career is to save Earth from devastating droughts to come, which threaten to destroy civilization itself, as well as most species on Earth.

We enjoy vacation travel (Hawaii, Costa Rica, Mexico, Germany, US West), contra dancing 4 nights a week, and hour-long walks every day around local lakes. We occasionally see other Phuds - including brother Brian, Carol & Tim Lamm, Martha Mattus, Loren Cobb, Rita Goldberg, and Sue Meld.

Mark Heumann:

Update 2013: See http://www.experton-group.com/team/person/article/heumann-mark.html

Update 2022: I am retired. I do not expect to take a job. (I do not expect to resume my scholarship, either.) My old boss Don Blair is long deceased. My boss at Experton (whose name I do not remember) was, last I knew, riding horses in the Alps. In July 2019 I emigrated to Warsaw, Poland. COVID made things difficult. In March 2022 my fiancee Hania died. In early June I returned to Texas. Currently, I live in Austin. I have PTSD. Slowly, with help, I am recovering a lifetime of memories. My email address is mheumann3@gmail.com.

Fredric Kardon:

Phil Lavori:

Update May 2007: see http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/hrp/faculty/Philip_Lavori/
Update 2023: chicken farmer? https://medium.com/@sefcommunications/after-brief-hiatus-the-farm-has-chickens-again-b006eff44153

Pat Lisko:

David Marshall:

I've been in Seattle since 1976. I married in 1993, at age 42. (My wife was the same age, and it was her first marriage, too. When we attended bridal fairs, people thought we were planning our children's wedding.) In the late '90's we adopted two boys at birth. We will have Social Security to help us pay college tuition.

My office is in downtown Seattle, so visiting Phud friends who have business or pleasure downtown could easily join me for lunch. I'd welcome their calls.

David S. Marshall, Union Bank of California Center, Suite 3250, 900 Fourth Avenue, Seattle, WA 98164-1005

Michael C. McFarland:

He completed his bachelor's degree in physics at Cornell University in 1969. He earned a master's degree and Ph.D. in electrical engineering (computer engineering) at Carnegie Mellon University. He worked as a consultant from 1985-86 at the AT&T Bell Laboratories, doing research in computer-aided design of digital systems. Fr. McFarland has published articles in the Proceedings of the IEEE (the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), the IEEE Transactions on Computers, and others. He was an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems for three years and has been on numerous program committees for conferences such as the Design Automation Conference, the International Conference on Computer Design, the International Conference on Computer-Aided Design and the High-Level Synthesis Workshop. Fr. McFarland joined the Jesuits in 1975. He studied at the Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass., and earned a master's in divinity and Th.M. in social ethics. He was ordained in the St. Joseph Memorial Chapel at Holy Cross in 1984. Fr. McFarland enjoys running six days each week in his free time.

Tim McKibbin:

Susan Meld (Shell):

Paul Mermin:

Joe Savago:

Loren Cobb has written a long reminiscence on Joe Savago and the Phud program, too long to fit here, which I have placed here.

Merle Robert (Bob) Showalter:

See instead http://www.mrshowalter.net/

Marcia F. Schwartz:

Marcia F. Schwartz, MD, PhD, pediatrician and geneticist with Patuxent Medical Group. Two Knoll North Drive, Columbia, Maryland

Jabez van Cleef:

Poet and writer; marketing professional; BA, Cornell U., 1970. Mgr., Willard Gallery, N.Y.C., 1976-78; mgr., Writing Specialists, Atlanta, 1979-82; account exec., A.B. Isacson Assocs., N.Y.C., 1982-85; account supervisor, Gilbert, Whitney & Johns, Whippany, N.J., 1985-86; from mktg. mgr. to dir. mktg. Hosokawa Micron International, N.Y.C. and Summit, N.J., 1986-93; mgr., prin. Van Cleef Assocs., Madison, N.J., 1993-97; dir. mktg. Komline-Sanderson, Peapack, N.J., 1997-99; mgr., prin. Jabez Van Cleef Industrial Marketing, Madison, N.J., 2000-2002. Sales Agent, Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, 2002-present. co-author: Fundamentals of Powder Technology, 1991; contbr. articles to American Scientist, Chemical Engineering, Research and Development. Author: Animalium Cantata (text) with music by Elliot Z. Levine, (1996); Gospels in Verse, A Text Resource for Musicians and Composers (1999); Gospels in Verse, Volume II (2001); All One Family Sing, a Secular Psalmbook (2003); The Song of the Cloud of Unknowing (2004); The Palimpsest of Human Rights (2004); James and John (text) with music by Robert Nicholls, (2004); TALYS (text) with music by David Wright (2004); There Is No Age (text) with music by Edie Hill, (2005); A Christmas Suite (text) with music by Michael Mendoza, (2005); Heaven On Earth (2005); The New Heliand, A Poetic Retelling of the Saxon Gospel (2005); The Song of Mark (Spoken Word CD, 2005); The Palimpsest of Human Rights (Spoken Word CD, 2006); Judith (2006); The Song of the Showing of Love (2006); The Song of the Angels (2006); The Song of the Fire of Love (2006); Igbo Singing, Wisdom for Living (2006); The Song of Thomas (2006); The Song of the Thunder (2006); The Song of Confucius (2007); All Is Beautiful: The Navajo Creation Story (2007); Works published on www.itunes.com and numerous other sites. Member, N.Y. Academy of Sciences, Harmonium Classical Choral Society, ASCAP, Rotary International. Episcopalian. He lives in Madison, NJ 07940.

Marguerite Waller:

She is Director, Center for Women in Coalition, and Chair, Department of Women's Studies, UC Riverside.
http://www.complitforlang.ucr.edu/people/faculty/waller/index.html

She died in March 2020. See https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=marguerite-rowland-waller&pid=195716279

James D. Wuest:

Departement de Chimie, Universite de Montreal. James D. Wuest was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1948. He studied chemistry and mathematics at Cornell University, where he was a National Merit Scholar, a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. While at Cornell, he was in the first group of students accepted into the experimental Six-Year Ph.D. Program, an integrated undergraduate and graduate program funded by the Ford Foundation. After receiving an A.B. summa cum laude in 1969, he elected to leave Cornell and to do graduate work in organic chemistry at Harvard University, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow and a student of the late Nobel Laureate Robert B. Woodward. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1973, he accepted an invitation to join the faculty at Harvard as an assistant professor of chemistry. He remained at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School until 1981, when he accepted a tenured position at the University de Montreal. He has been a full professor since 1986 and currently directs a research group of eighteen postdoctoral fellows and graduate students.

In 1988, Prof. Wuest was elected Fellow of the Chemical Institute of Canada and received the Merck Sharp & Dohme Award, which is given annually by the Canadian Society for Chemistry for outstanding work in organic chemistry carried out in Canada by a scientist under 40 years old. In 1992, the Royal Society of Canada awarded him its Rutherford Memorial Medal, which recognizes exceptional research in any area of chemistry done in Canada by a scientist under 40 years old. In the same year, he also received a Killam Research Fellowship from the Canada Council, which recognizes conspicuous achievement in the arts, sciences, or letters. http://www.wuestgroup.com/page_prof_wuest.html

The Second Year, 1967

Mark Acres:

Mark wrote fantasy novels for the youth market, pastored a Quaker church for three years, and worked many years as a game designer for role playing and military simulations. He was a Medical Search Consultant at St. John Associates. He has frequently portrayed Santa Claus at Christmas. He lives in Indiana.

September 2023: See https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/336/mark-acres

Theodore Baker:

Ted Baker is a professor of computer science at Florida State University. He married Syauchen Chang in 1973 and has three daughters, Carolyn, Jean, and Anne. More information is on his web page (http://www.cs.fsu.edu/~baker).

Rick Berman:

Apparently Rick died in 1981. (social security death index)

David Boochever:

As of April 2016, David lives in Manhattan Beach, CA. Searching the internet, he is apparently married to Kathleen Boochever. He is associated with the Archaeological Institute of America. He is associated with Computer Technology Support, Inc.

Ellen Coy:

Ellen married Myron Mandell, who was a graduate student in physics at Cornell. She is a physician in Oceanside, California.

Gordon Crandall:

Gordon is a professor of mathematics at LaGuardia Community College in New York City.

Karen Dempsey:

She is now known as Keara O'Dempsey. She is a lawyer and is on facebook. See also
http://www.martindale.com/Keara-M-ODempsey/535860-lawyer.htm

Karel Ehrlich:

Karel got his PhD in mathematics from Cornell, was later a professor at Purdue, then moved on to Bell Labs. He lives in New Jersey.

Rita Goldberg:

I was a second-year Phud. I arrived in the fall of 1967 and roomed for 2 of my 3 undergraduate years with Ann Roebuck, who died a couple of years after we graduated. I majored in German literature and went on to Princeton, where I got a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature. I met my future husband, Oliver Hart, an English economist, in the Graduate College there. In 1974 we married and spent the next decade in England, mostly in Cambridge, where we both taught. Stephen Parrish turned up at lunch at my college, Trinity Hall, one day, and turned white as a ghost when he saw me--we agreed that our memories from those days were decidedly mixed. Our two sons, Daniel and Benjamin, were born in England; Dan is now 24, Ben 19. In 1984 we came to MIT and then to Harvard, where we have been since. I live in Lexington, MA, along, it appears, with several other Phuds, which was quite a surprise! I've written academic stuff on English and French literature in the eighteenth century, but am almost finished with a family memoir as part of the process of turning myself into a writer of fiction.

Update 2018: Our sons are now 41 and 36. We're the happy grandparents of two boys aged 11 and 7. Our older son, Dan Hart, married to the adorable Ellen, is development director of the Anti-Defamation League (New England region), and has been run off his feet with the much-increased work they do against all forms of racism, hatred and bullying since the advent of Trump. Our younger son, Benjamin Hart, is a writer/ editor at New York magazine. You can see his stuff online at The Daily Intelligencer. They, too, are fighting the craziness through their work.
As for us grandparents: I published a family memoir, Motherland: Growing Up with the Holocaust recently (London, 2014; New York, 2015), and still talk about it to various groups. I've gotten to know Judy, Phil Lavori's sister, quite well through her friendship with my youngest sister Dot, who lost her husband to pancreatic cancer on January 27. So a rough year again in 2017-18. We're both still teaching, and Oliver Hart, my husband, won the Nobel Prize in Economics, together with our friend Bengt Holmstrom at MIT, in 2016.

Tim Hunt:

Tim Hunt is professor of english at Washington State University, Vancouver, and the editor of the Collected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers. http://www.libarts.wsu.edu/english/People/Faculty/Hunt.html.

Update April 2007: Tim is now the department Chair at Illinois State University.

Update 2023: See https://tahunt.com/about/

Jim Jandacek

Jim graduated in '70, earned a masters in engineering physics in '71, and went on law school at Harvard. He then worked for a big Chicago firm after a few years in a prestigious clerkship. He is now practicing copyright law in Oregon. (http://pview.findlaw.com/view/1332975_1)

Alan Jones:

I received my PhD in mathematics from Cornell in 1976, and in 1978 married fellow-Phud Martha Mattus. After two years on the itinerant assistant professor circuit, never both in the same city, we decided to abandon academia, move to Seattle (which we'd seen only in mid-summer, during a production of Wagner's Ring des Niebelungen), and find real jobs. I ended up in the Mathematics & Computing Technology organization at Boeing, doing consultation and code development in computer aided geometric design and related areas. Martha and I split up in 1992, and she headed for southern California, but I'm still in Seattle, and it's still raining. I'm now happily married to Eileen Crawford, with a delightful 16 year old stepdaughter, and two incipiently middle-aged cats.

Jonathan Katz:

I received a Ph.D. in Astronomy & Space Sciences from Cornell in 1973. I am a professor of physics (mostly astrophysics, but I have dabbled in other parts of physics and am now doing biophysics) at Washington University (definitely a second-rate university, but St. Louis is a good place to live). I also do some consulting. Details may be found at my web site: http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/. It was fun becoming a scientist c. 1970, but I strongly discourage young people from doing so now; see the essay "Don't Become a Scientist'' on my web page. I recently completed a popular book entitled "The Biggest Bangs'', which will be out from Oxford U. Press in Spring 2002. I have been married for 19 years, and we have five children, aged 5 to almost 18. The oldest is a freshman at Penn.
Update 2019: We now have four grandchildren.
I'm still doing theoretical astrophysics, mostly fast radio bursts, (and a little climatology and other physics) at Washington University, St. Louis.

Update 2022: Not much to update professionally: I am a theoretical astrophysicist and professor of physics at Washington University, now mostly working on Fast Radio Bursts.

Personal life: We have five children and seven grandchildren, with an eighth on the way.

Update December 2022: My eighth grandchild was born December 23. Hoping to see a great-grandchild some day, but my oldest grandchild is six, and the first six are all boys who marry later than girls...
If anyone wants to contact me: katz@wuphys.wustl.edu

Ward Keeler:

Ward is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Texas (Austin).
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/anthropology/faculty/list.php

Update 2022: See https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/anthropology/faculty/wwk4284

Pete Klosterman:

Pete is a candidate for the title "Phud who took the longest to get a Ph.D.", receiving one from Yale University, Dept. of Biophysics and Biochemistry, in 1998. Pete is currently a software developer living in Oakland, CA.
Update April 2016: Pete has retired and lives in New York City.

Robert H. (Bob) Lewis:

I married my Res Club sweetheart Lisa Mebane in 1970 at the ripe age of 21. We had a lot of fun birding in the Ithaca area and elsewhere, but divorced in 1979. She has long since remarried and lives in North Carolina. I remarried in 1985 to Susan Wernert and have a 12 year old daughter. We live in Westchester County, New York, near the Hudson River.

I left Cornell with a PhD in mathematics (algebraic topology) in 1976 for a position at a college in South Carolina. The job market was terrible then, so I went back and got a masters in computer science at UNC Chapel Hill. That was a great time and place to bird. Since 1980 I have been a professor of mathematics (and sometimes computer science) at Fordham University in New York City, the Bronx. I am now the Chair. I started out in algebraic topology but slowly shifted to applying computer algebra to pure mathematics. I now think of myself as an applied mathematician, which is, ironically, what I thought I was going to be when I entered Cornell in 1967. I have consulted for the Office of Naval Research in computer algebra. My computer algebra system Fermat is unexcelled at polynomial and matrix computation, clobbering the big name systems by orders of magnitude. I have a couple of web pages, my professional software at http://home.bway.net/lewis/, and my avocation, birding, especially gulls, at http://home.bway.net/lewis/birds/gulls.html. I have birded just about everywhere in the lower 48, in Hawaii, and many locations in Europe.
Added April 2007: No big change from the above. Professionally, I have consulted for various agencies in the Washington DC area. I have recently become interested in computational chemistry, modeling the flexibility of molecules via systems of polynomial equations. I spent a sabbatical in New Mexico and fell in love with the state.
Another web site: http://fordham.academia.edu/RobertLewis

Update 2018: I continue to develop software, publish papers, and give talks on computer algebra and applications. There are many links on the web site above. I spent three months in Perth Australia in 2017 and absolutely loved it! What a magnificent place to live. Magnificent deserts, magnificent beaches, magnificent estuaries. Also wrote a book with two colleagues while I was there, Mathematical Geosciences: Hybrid Symbolic-Numeric Methods, Springer.

Update 2019: I am in the final year of phased retirement from Fordham University. I will teach for the last time in December 2019. I will officially retire in June 2020.

Update 2022: My wife and I now live in Durham NC.

Some of my bird photographs are here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/rfermat/albums/with/72177720303854809

Martha Mattus:

I'm in Portland OR, living alone after the death of my husband Bill in 2019. I'm retired, but I'm doing bookkeeping for a Puppet Theatre and Museum in my neighborhood as my volunteer work in support of the arts. I still travel - 3 cruises in 2022, each with a different travel companion - and trips by car around Oregon and up to Seattle and visits to friends on the East Coast from time to time. My college friend Joelle in Albuquerque and I took a cruise together last fall to Alaska and this past spring around Italy and Greece, and we visit each other every year as well. I've done yoga for years, and when Covid started my favorite teacher set up a twice weekly Zoom yoga class. Susana is from Mexico City, and 2 of her sisters who still live there attend the class, so it's taught bilingually. Others attend from CA, Ohio, Washington, Florida, and Rhode Island. We've become a very close group, and I've met several people from the class in person and will be visiting the one in Ohio next month [October 2023].

David Pritikin:

I received my Cornell degree in 1971 and then went on to Harvard Law School, from which I graduated in 1974. Since that time I have practiced with Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood in Chicago, where I have been a partner since 1981. Sidley is a large multi-national law firm, with its principal U.S. offices in New York and Chicago. My work involves litigation, originally antitrust but in the last ten years primarily intellectual property. I married Amy Franklin in 1978, and we have been happily married for 24 years. Amy is a graduate of Northwestern Law School, but she has not practiced law since our daughter was born in 1979. We live in the Chicago suburb of Glencoe and have two children, both Harvard College computer science majors. Our daughter graduated last June and now works for Microsoft in Redmond; our son is currently a junior. We see Gary Wolfe and his wife Irene from time to time when we are in New York.

Amy Pruitt:

Amy Pruitt is a doctor (neurology) with the University of Pennsylvania. She was recognized in Philadelphia Magazine's May 2002 "Top Docs" issue.

Paul Rahe:

Paul Rahe is the Jay P. Walker Professor of American History at the University of Tulsa. http://www.cas.utulsa.edu/history/

Update 2013: He is now Professor of History at Hillsdale College, where he holds an endowed chair.

Mark Ritter:

Mark received a PhD in German from the University of Texas and has worked in that area as a translator. You can find him with Google by searching for "Mark Ritter" German.
Update January 2010: see http://www.translationdirectory.com/articles/article1475.php
Update September 2023: see https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/postgraduate/masters/modules/theoryfromthemargins/bloch.pdf

Ann Roebuck:

Ann died a few years after leaving Cornell, in the early 1970s.

Antonio (Tony) Sastre:

I got a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at Cornell in 1974. My "application" was to neurobiology, an area where I needed more training. I remained in Ithaca for 2 more years of postdoc in neurobio, and followed that with a one-year postdoc in pharmacology at Cornell Med in New York City. I then took a job in physiology and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine from 1977 to 1988, leaving as Associate Professor in both departments. At that point I decided to try my hand at consulting, and moved to a small biomedical and environmental consulting firm in NYC from 1988 to 1993, when I set up my own shop. I remained in the NYC area until 1996, when Midwest Research Institute, a private, non-profit research institute in Kansas City made me an offer I could not refuse. Currently I oversee a number of biomedical research projects at the Institute, maintain some of my long-term consulting clients, and have an appointment as Associate Professor of Physiology at the Kansas University Medical Center.

On the personal side, I have a seven year-old son, Conor Sean Sastre, who lives with his mother in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Most of my spare time and all of my cash go to traveling to Kalamazoo every month to be with Conor, and take him on vacations during Xmas, Spring break and summers. Otherwise, I still read voraciously and listen to classical music.

Update 2020: In 2007 I joined the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, retiring in 2017. My last position was as Program Director and Acting Deputy Director of Extramural Programs at the Institute within the NIH that helps fund cutting edge technologies in medical imaging and bioengineering. It was an oddly fitting closing of the loop with my Phud years, putting to good use quite a bit of the math and physics I learned at Cornell. My move back to the East Coast was also fortunate in that I met Katharine Wulf in 2010, and we married in 2014. After retirement we moved to Charlottesville, VA, where we enjoy a slower pace of life, reading, taking courses at UVA, listening to music and extensive travel overseas.

Morris Siegel:

Morris did finish his PhD in computer science at Cornell, though not in six years. He is living in New York City.

Roy Stephenson:

The following is taken from the web page of the Sante Fe Watershed Association (May 9, 2007):

Roy graduated from Santa Fe High School, then received BA and MA degrees in Literature from Cornell University. He taught English at Santa Fe Preparatory School. After obtaining his law degree from University of New Mexico, he has practiced in State Government, previously as a Children's Court Attorney, and is presently the Director of the Legal Division, New Mexico Public Regulation Commission. He assists his father, John, with the Community Farm; they recently transferred their stretch of the River to Santa Fe County for extension of San Ysidro River Park. In his spare time, Stephenson spends long hours in the mountains, backpacking and bird watching.
He was later executive director of the Santa Fe Community Farm, Inc.
See also https://www.tpl.org/resource/once-and-future-river-landpeople

Peter Tomas:

Peter Tomas received a PhD in mathematics from Cornell in 1974. According to http://www.mathlab.cornell.edu/m/doctorates1970-79, he had a career at the University of Texas-Austin.

Richard Velkley:

Richard Velkley is associate professor of philosophy at Catholic University of America, http://philosophy.cua.edu/rlv/
Update 2009: He is now the Celia Scott Weatherhead Professor of Philosophy at Tulane.

Neil Wasserman:

May 9, 2007: From a web site for the Center for Connected Health:
My current research interests concern the effects of and circumstances required for changing persistent behaviors in individuals and organizations. My early background is in physics (Cornell) and History of Science (Harvard). After an extended period as consulting director at Unisys, I branched out to address issues concerning the interface between IT and business service delivery. My company, Adaptive Service Engineering, provides consulting services to U.S. federal clients and other organizations. These services include strategic planning for information systems, enterprise architecture, business planning, and IT portfolio management. The focus is on redesign service delivery processes to be component-based, and adaptive to varying customer roles, capabilities and needs.
Upate 2023. See: https://www.academia.edu/14457922/Managing_Implementation_Risks_through_Time-Behavior_Analysis?auto=download

Update 2023. See: https://gwu.academia.edu/NeilWasserman

Ed Whitfield:

I came to Cornell in 1967 as a Presidential Scholar, National Achievement Scholar (an offshoot of the National Merit Scholarship program isolating Black students), Cornell National Scholar and a Telluride Scholar. I was immediately accepted into the College Scholars program that allowed me to take whatever classes I wanted. After restricting me to about 18 hours my first semester with the racist assumption that I might need remedial help, I was allowed to take 22 or 23 hours subsequent semesters moving me from the class of '71 to the class of '70. At some point in 1968 I was invited into the Six Year PhD program.

I continued to live in Telluride house with Richard Velkley and Karel Ehrlich. Karel and I did our math homework together many evenings. I also rowed on the Crew until I became more active with the Afro-American Society. In the spring of 1969 I became the head of the AAS, renaming it the Cornell Black Liberation Front. I was the leader at the time of the Straight takeover. (The next fall I was voted out and the name was changed back. It seems that more respectable students came to the fore.) I stayed only for that fall semester, leaving in the winter of 1970 about a semester short of finishing with a BA in Mathematics.

I came to North Carolina to teach at Malcolm X Liberation University until it closed after a few years. I stayed to do labor and community organizing as well as anti-war work. I worked in a factory for 30 years, was the leader of the Greensboro Peace Coalition, worked on the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Project, raised a family, got married repeatedly, learned to play guitar and I am now Co-Founder and Co-Managing Director of a small Foundation, F4DC (see ). I never finished college but I have found a few opportunities to co-teach college classes in the area on issues of authentic democracy as well as speeches on popular political economy.

Frances Weller (Kaye):

Fran Weller is professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Gary Wolfe:

I ended up graduating in Class of '71, and then went to Yale Law School. I took a leave of absence after my first year, and spent the next 9 months in former Yugoslavia (Slovenia and Croatia) on a student exchange and then traveling around Eastern Europe. I returned to Yale the next September and graduated in 1975. I then returned to Yugoslavia in October, 1975, on a combination IREX/Fulbright Doctoral Dissertaion Fellowship (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and University of Belgrade, Serbia), studying the Yugoslav workers' self-management system. I started working in New York City as a lawyer in 1977. I got married in 1983 to Irene Tyckyj (now Wolfe--easier to pronounce), and we had a son, Greg, in 1986. We live in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan where we have what New Yorkers call a brownstone.

Gary J. Wolfe is a partner in Seward & Kissel's Corporate Finance group. He has practiced law since 1977. Mr. Wolfe joined Seward & Kissel as a partner in 1992. Mr. Wolfe specializes in Corporate Securities and Capital Market Transactions.

The Third Year, 1968

Susan Ball:

Susan B. Thompson: I was Susan Ball then -- After the summer in France I dropped out of school for a year, then managed to return to Cornell for a BA a year later. Wandered out west and went to veterinary school at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins. Migrated back east and have been practicing small animal medicine in Charleston, South Carolina ever since. I live on Sullivan's Island with my husband and 3 daughters.

James O. Berger:

Jim Berger is a professor of statistics at Duke. Before that, he had a long career at Purdue.
Update 2008: He is now the director of SAMSI: http://www.samsi.info/
http://www.stat.duke.edu/~berger/

Update 2022: He is The Arts and Sciences Professor of Statistics at Duke.

Ray Bovet:

I might as well start with what I haven't done - get a PhD. After the year living on Farm Street [1969-70, with a bunch of other Phuds, including Bob Lewis, Georg Deutsch, Bruce Ferrero, Mark Acres, Ted Baker, John Kaplan, and John Houston], I decided to spend a "junior year abroad" in Switzerland, partially because my Dad was from Switzerland and I have dual nationality and had a low draft number at the time. As my advisor (I *think* it was Mermin?) said at the time I learned a lot, and some of it was even physics! I ended up spending 3 years in Switzerland at the University of Geneva and did complete a Masters in Physics with thesis work at CERN. Pretty cool stuff but I was already convinced that graduate physics was too abstract for me. On the other hand, these computers popping up everywhere were pretty fun. I learned a little bit about watches by doing research at a watch company during the summers. I learned a lot about the world by travelling around Europe, especially after I met my wife - Suzanne Webel, during my second year there. I also learned how fun it is to ski. That led to looking for a place to live back in the States that included good skiing (mind you, I have never been better than an intermediate skier, but I *do* like it). We settled in Boulder, Colorado "for a few years", and we're still here! I worked as a computer programmer at the National Center for Atmospheric Research with groups doing Solar Physics, Mesoscale Meteorology, and Climate Research until 1995. Since then I've been at a "startup" company named DigitalGlobe (I think most people would consider 11 years to be a bit long to remain a startup!). We sell high resolution satellite imagery of the Earth to governments and commercial users. I mostly play with software to archive and retrieve all the imagery. When we were a smaller company it was really incredibly fun. Now it's a little less so, with too much corporate structure. Suzanne worked as a geologist for oil companies until about 1986 when the oil industry cratered. Since then she's become more and more involved in lobbying for trails and other equestrian causes. We have 2 kids - Claire is now 16.5 (and thinking of Yale), and Colin is 15. We "bought the farm" (we call it Starlight Farm) in 1997 and moved there in 1999. We all really enjoy living in the country, and I'm happy to go work in an office every day and let Suzanne do the real work of running the farm (we board one horse in addition to our own 4, and raise hay).

John Burkett:

I was drawn to Cornell partly by the prospect of earning a PhD in 6 years and partly by an interest in learning what Professor Jaroslav Vanek had to say about socialist economies. In my third year at Cornell, I decided that to pursue my interest in socialist economies, I should enroll in the Ph.D. program at the University of California (Berkeley), where professors Gregory Grossman and Benjamin Ward taught courses about the economies of the USSR and Yugoslavia. While completing my Ph.D., I took a job at the University of London, where I worked as a research assistant to Professor Richard Portes, a specialist in east European economies. Completing my Ph.D. in 1981, I applied for university jobs in the U.S. and attended a meeting of the American Economic Association, where I had interviews with numerous U.S. universities. Unfortunately, none of the U.S. universities could afford to fly me across the Atlantic for an on-campus interview. The University of Rhode Island offered me a job without an on-campus interview. I accepted it and remained there (apart from sabbaticals) until my retirement in 2022. While there, I published two books (The Effects of Economic Reforms in Yugoslavia, and Microeconomics: Optimization, Experiments, and Behavior) and articles in several academic economic journals.

Bruce Deitchman:

Bruce is a dermatologist in New York City. http://www.med.nyu.edu/people/B.Deitchman.html
Update: Bruce died in May 2015.
Update 2023: See https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/nytimes/name/bruce-deitchman-obituary?id=32827392

Georg Deutsch:

Georg completed a PhD in neuroscience or brain research and later worked in that field in Texas. He is now at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. [Technically, Georg was not a Phud but a college scholar.]
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Georg_Deutsch

Marvant Duhon:

My wife Susan and I met at Cornell. We have three children, Russell (born Jan '83) who is working in St. Louis; Julie (June '85) studying in India, spent a year attending Copernicus's Alma Mater in Poland; and Kendra (July '87), still in high school. After graduation in '72 I was still full of idealism. I worked for the McGovern campaign (but with no illusions - my unappreciated but correct estimate was that we would take 35% of the vote in my SW Louisiana congressional district, and likely beat the national average). I worked briefly in a child welfare office that was unpleasant, and worse to the children. Was commissioned in the Marines and did well, including in the Vietnam evacuations. Active Duty until 1976, some reserve duty in the 1980's including liaison officer to the navy for the pair of thousand-bed hospital ships (the largest govt project ever to come in under budget and ahead of schedule) launched just before the first Gulf War. After we moved to Bloomington, Indiana I tried grad school in anthropology, unsuccessfully. I've been in nursing the past 20 years, specializing in home health care. I read a lot, garden, like various games, and am often involved in local issues such as the public schools.

Update: Marvant died on May 31, 2023. See https://www.heraldtimesonline.com/obituaries/psbn0499294

Bruce Ferrero:

Bruce became a mathematician and wrote some important papers in the late 70s on algebraic number theory. You will find him if you Google his name and "Iwasawa invariant". Later he became an active runner.
Update March 2023: See for instance http://www.hitekracing.com/results99/rfld.htm

Doreen Geller Leopold:

Doreen is a professor of chemistry at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
Update January 2010: http://www1.umn.edu/news/features/2009/UR_CONTENT_123478.html

David Harding

I received my BA in '71, on schedule, and rolled right into Cornell graduate school in physics. Even without taking any detours, it wasn't until March of 1978 that I defended my thesis, based on an experiment I did at the Cornell electron synchrotron under Upper Alumni Field with Professors White, Cassel, Hartill, and Berkelman; a couple of post-docs; and six other grad students, including fourth year Phud Tom Killian. I promptly started a post-doc position at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, 30 miles west of Chicago. I returned to Ithaca in August 1978 to spend a few weeks following up on the recommendations of my special committee and left the thesis with a Cornell secretary who typed theses on the side. She fell ill before finishing it and her temporary replacement cleaned off her notoriously cluttered desk. I didn't follow up for a few years, by which time the original secretary was back on the job. I delivered a back-up copy to her and in the fall of 1982 turned it in. My PhD is thus dated January 1983. I have been at Fermilab ever since.

After several years of working on a string of experiments shifted to working on the accelerators that feed experiments. Most of my career has now been devoted to building magnets, though I took a ten-year detour spending time as a higher level manager. In April 2023 I will start “phased retirement”, dropping back to our days per week. I have also spent some time on out-reach, including developing a Physics of Sports presentation that we take to local schools.

In 1976, as soon as she finished medical school, I married Pauline, whom I had met between our Phud summer and the start of classes in September. Her board certification is family medicine, but in her private practice she specializes in environmental medicine, chemical sensitivities, and other such problems. Daughter Maggie has been worked her way up through the ranks of Abercrombie & Fitch store managers, culminating with being the second in command at their west coast flagship store. From there she shifted direction several times and is now working a personal organizer. Daughter Betsy is a Cornelian (Hotel '06) who caught up on science courses in a post-baccalaureate pre-medical program, completed medical school and a family medicine residency, and has now been working at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage.

In the community, I served on the Board of Commissioners of the Warrenville (IL) Park District for 16 years, many of them as president, leading the district through a period of explosive growth. I now have a baseball field named after me. I spent seven years on the board of directors of our local Girl Scout council. I have been an active volunteer with local folk music festivals. Until COVID-19 shut us down, my wife and I were active contra dancers, locally and around the country. I helped run series of dances locally. I attend college fairs and talk with Cornell applicants through the CAAAN program. I caught the genealogy bug many years ago and actively exploit the on-line resources that have become available.

The only other Phud I've had contact with is fraternity brother Jim Jandacek from the second class.

John Houston:

After completing a PhD in chemistry at Cornell I went to medical school and completed a psychiatry residency in San Antonio. I practiced psychiatry and pharmaceutical research in Texas for a number of years. I have been living in Zionsville, Indiana for the last 4 years while working mostly on pharmacogenomics projects at Eli Lilly. My wife of 24 years, Blanca, and I have a 13 year old daughter Phoebe.

Leon King:

He died in 1974 while a graduate student at Cornell. See https://www.newspapers.com/clip/120543253/the-ithaca-journal/

Tim and Carol Klingbeil Lamm:

We were married in 1971, taking the opportunity to skip graduation by scheduling our wedding in Poughkeepsie the afternoon before graduation day. Some Phuds may remember our wedding - we have photos to prove you were there.

In 1975, Carol, who was one of the Phud medievalists, decided that after all she wasn't cut out for life in the Rare Book Room. She left Cornell with an M.A. and a stack of color-coded 5" X 8" note cards that had been supposed to turn into a dissertation about Walter of Chatillon and Adam of St. Victor. Tim persisted and received his Ph.D. in math (number theory) in 1976.

In 1976 we left Ithaca for the small town of Berea, Kentucky, where we have lived happily ever after. It was a choice for a simple lifestyle with time for gardening, children, community and part-time professional work. Twenty-six years later the garden, which flourished for many years, is neglected. Our son Ben is successfully out of the nest, and our daughter Rooney is making the most of her last years of high school. Both of us have served in a variety of roles within Berea Friends Meeting and our regional Quaker yearly meeting. Carol volunteered on state environmental issues in the 1980s, then in the 1990s turned her focus to public education reform. Tim discovered the joy of dance - and considerable talent for it - and is active as a teacher and more recently a choreographer of vintage dance, which is 19th and early 20th century social dancing. We both succeeded in working part-time until the late 1980s, and one or the other of us has worked part-time since then. It all seems more complex than simple, and we've had two cars for years now, but we do heat only with wood.

We've both made career shifts. In the mid-80s Tim switched from teaching math to computer programming. After working as a self-employed consultant for several years, he joined a small software company in 1997, where he designs and writes Windows applications for a niche market. Carol spent 20+ years working in Appalachian community development but recently switched to accounting and passed the CPA exam last November. We're currently dreaming of finding a way to live and work abroad for a few years.

Update 2022: Carol died in 2020; see https://www.friendsjournal.org/carol-klingbeil-lamm/

Don Maruska:

Don Maruska & Company, Inc. - Business Success Coaching. http://www.donmaruska.com

Judy McNamara:

Judy McNamara married a fellow Cornell medievalist grad student, Al Shoaf, in 1975 (in the Annabel Taylor courtyard), and they spent a "honeymoon" year in Iceland where she had a Fulbright grant. She moved with Al to New Haven, where he had taken a job at Yale, and in 1978 received her Ph.D. and gave birth to Brian. In 1982-83 Al had an NEH and they moved to Rome for a year. Judy taught part-time in various programs at Yale and around New Haven until 1986, when the family moved to Gainesville, Florida, where Al had a tenured professorship. The Shoafs had a daughter, Elaine, later that year. Judy continued to teach as an adjunct in the English department and also became chief cook and copyeditor for a journal founded by Al, _Exemplaria_. In 1993 she took over running the UF Language Learning Center and has since seen the labs through moves, expansions, cutbacks, digitalizations, and reorganizations. Somewhere along the way she picked up the job of running Arthurnet, an e-mail list for enthusiasts of the Round Table legends, which has deepened her understanding of human nature. Another enthusiasm is Japanese dolls, and she has her own website for this topic. Meanwhile, Brian grew up, and it is STILL not clear, despite a BFA and MFA, whether he will be a writer whose day job is acting or vice-versa; he married the brilliant and beautiful Michelle Six in 2006. Elaine is now at Savannah College of Art and Design, majoring in illustration. Judy has not been an active scholar but has given a few papers on medieval romance at conferences and may someday finish a verse translation of Marie de France's _Lais_. She recently published a novel, _The Da Vinci Barcode_, which is available on Amazon.

Loisa Nygaard:

Loisa is an Associate Professor of Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, currently researching landscape gardening in the 18th century. Her partner is an Astrophysicist.
Update January 2010: http://literature.ucsc.edu/directory/details.php?id=55
Update August 2023: https://humanities.ucsc.edu/academics/faculty/index.php?uid=nygaard

Toni Pardi:

The Marlborough School, Los Angeles: http://clio.marlborough.la.ca.us/depts/faculty2.html

Lance Paavola:

updated May 9, 2007: died March 4, 1999. A web search for his name will turn up several items, mostly relating to the death of a good friend of his in 1992, or to a magazine called "Home Office Computing".

September 2023: See https://www.iagsdchistory.org/wiki/Lance_Paavola

Craig Saltzer:

Craig became a teacher in a community college, then a pastor in North Carolina.
https://www.the-dispatch.com/story/news/2007/06/23/pastor-trades-teaching-for-preaching/30129720007/

Stephanie Seremetis:

Update August 2007: I am class iii. Hanging out in Denmark, which is a country much more consistent with my internal culture than is our country of origin.

Stephanie Seremetis, M.D.
Clinical Project Director, Hemophilia
Global Medical Director, Hematology
NovoSeven Key Projects
Medical and Science, Hematology

Novo Nordisk A/S
Denmark
sest at novonordisk dot com

Christine Sheppard:

I was a third year phud, did get a PhD from Cornell, but it took ten years, not six. I've been some variety of curator of birds at the Wildlife Conservation Society/Bronx Zoo since I left Ithaca, and am now also coodinator of Green (ie act locally) activities for all our facilities. Curator, Ornithology, Wildlife Conservation Society/Bronx Zoo.
Update January 2010: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/e3b/faculty/sheppard.html; http://www.abcbirds.org/aboutabc/biographies.html
Update 2023: She has retired. Google "christine shepherd ornithology"

Marcia Skalnik:

A person by that name lives in Trumansburg NY and is a bookkeeper.

Merrill Vargo:

Executive Director, Bay Area School Reform Collaborative. http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/research/eco/rcece/rcecebio.html

The Fourth Year, 1969

Wilda Anderson:

She is professor of French at Johns Hopkins. https://krieger.jhu.edu/modern-languages-literatures/directory/wilda-anderson/

Gilbert Allen:

I finished my B.A. in 1972, my M.F.A. in 1974, and (after a depressing year of high-school teaching) my Ph.D. in December 1976. Since 1977 I've been living in the foothills of South Carolina with my wife, Barbara. (We were married on August 17, 1974.) We've both come to regard Southern Appalachia as our home. After Barbara left elementary-school teaching in 1980, she became an active member of the local Methodist church and a tireless advocate for environmentally sensible community development. When I retired from teaching at Furman University in 2015, we decided to visit as many national parks as we could. So far we've been to Congaree, Smoky Mountain, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Acadia, Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia. I've also continued my career as a writer and editor. For the details, just go to https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/gilbert_allen .

I teach English at Furman. Although it's called a "university," Furman is really a liberal-arts college, so my colleagues and I spend most of our time with general-education classes. I also teach upper-division courses in modern poetry and creative writing. My fourth book of poems, Driving to Distraction, should come out in early 2003. If you'd like to see (and hear) some of my work, check out www.cortlandreview.com.
Update January 2010: http://tiptonpoetryjournal.com/tpj12/allen.htm
http://www.furman.edu/depts/english/

Hugh Bergknoff:

He is an OB/GYN in New Jersey. He graduated from University Of Miami School Of Medicine in 1981.

Beth L. Cameron:

I have wandered around a lot since leaving Cornell. I earned both a BA & a BSN from Cornell, an MSN from the University of Rochester, and a DNP (doctor of nursing practice) from Rush University in Chicago. I have worked as a primary nurse at George Washington University Hospital; a staff nurse in the ICU at Genesse Memorial Hospital in Batavia, NY; a rural public health nurse in Allegany County, NY; a family nurse practitioner (lieutenant) in the United States Public Health Service stationed in rural Alabama; an FNP with the Veterans Administration hospitals in Gainesville & West Palm Beach, FL; an FNP with Planned Parenthood in Iowa; a professor and nursing program director at Trinity College of Nursing & Health Sciences in Rock Island, IL; and various assorted contracted & volunteered nurse/nurse practitioner activities. I am currently on the faculty at Wright State University in Dayton, OH, teaching community health and adult health and helping develop the DNP program that (hopefully) will start January 2008 at WSU. I have a joint faculty appointment with the Dayton VA medical center working with the diabetes team two days a week. When I have time for a deep breath, I visit my elderly mother or take a long walk in the woods. My daughter, Mary Wahl, is a junior at Caltech majoring in biology - she is a joy and an inspiration.

A. Lyman Chapin:

Mr. Chapin is an IEEE Fellow and past chairman of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). He represents the United States on two committees: NATO's Science Committee (the networking advisory panel) and the International Federation for Information Processing's technical committee on communication systems (IFIP TC6). He also serves as a director of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Lyman Chapin graduated from Cornell University in 1973 with a B.A. in Mathematics, and spent the next two year writing COBOL applications for Systems & Programs (NZ) Ltd. in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. After a year travelling in Australia and Asia, he joined the newly-formed Networking group at Data General Corporation in 1977. At DG, he was responsible for the development of software for distributed resource management (operating-system embedded RPC), distributed database management, X.25-based local and wide- area networks, and OSI-based transport, internetwork, and routing functions for DG's open-system products. In 1987 he formed the Distributed Systems Architecture group, and was responsible for the development of DG's Distributed Application Architecture (DAA) and for the specification of the directory and management services of DAA. He moved to Bolt Beranek and Newman in 1990 as the Chief Network Architect in BBN's Communications Division and later as a Chief Scientist in the Systems and Technologies Division. He currently serves as chairman of ANSI-accredited task group X3S3.3, responsible for Network and Transport layer standards; as chairman of the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM); as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society; and as the Internet Standards and Procedures area director of the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). He lives with his wife and two young daughters in Hopkinton, Massachusetts (USA)

Mike Ciaraldi:

I now live in Worcester, MA, where I have been Professor of Practice in the Department of Computer Science at Worcester Polytechnic Institute since 1999. I am also part of WPI's new undergraduate program in Robotics Engineering, the first in the nation. Before that I picked up two separate Masters degrees in CS, worked for some companies, ran my own consulting business, and taught part-time.
I married Judy Miller '73 in 1997; we divorced in 2007.
A few years ago I started a new hobby: writing plays; so far I've had six produced on campus and one in Boston. This replaced my old hobby of collecting comics; I donated my collection of 60,000 items to the library at Brown University.

Lauren Tozek Cowdery:

Bill Cowdery and I have been married since 1977 (23 years?) and have a 12 year old daughter Betsy who is entering 8th grade. I received a PhD in English from Cornell, and Bill did one in Musicology. Both took forever--at least it seemed so then. We tried leaving Ithaca on several occasions, but our hearts weren't in it, so you'll find us here, within walking distance of one of the two middle schools (both, actually--Ithaca is still pretty small) and also the church where Bill is organist and choir director. He teaches in the Cornell music dept on occasion. I had tenure at a small women's college, but left when we returned to Ithaca. I've been teaching in the Cornell Communication dept, but recently have suffered from serious and frequent migraines. Last fall I was affected about three days a week--light show, aphasia, the whole deal. I'm now on medical leave and can manage them better. Alternative treatments are working better for me than medication (ugh!).

Right now my head is full of costume design. Last January I came on the parent volunteer scene just as A Midsummer Night's Dream was going up at my daughter's school, and I had more fun costuming the kids than I ever could have imagined. Since then I've designed two more shows and a summer theater camp. (Dennis, do you know Katherine Machan AKA Sajal? I'm starting to make costumes for her.) And I've made two 18th c. repro gowns just for the fun of it. Now all I need to do is figure out how to turn a penny at it.

Jane Gallop:

Jane entered the Phud Program in 1969 and got a PhD in French in 1976. She is currently Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee, where she's taught feminist theory in an interdisciplinary graduate program since 1990. Before that she taught French at Miami University (1977-83) and Women's Studies at Rice University (1985-90). Jane has published six books, including _Thinking Through the Body_ (Columbia University Press, 1987) and _Feminist Accused of Sexual Harassment_ (Duke University Press, 1997), and has two more coming out in the next year or so. Jane has been living with Dick Blau (photographer, film professor) since 1983 and they have two children, Max Blau Gallop (b. 1986) and Ruby Gallop Blau (b. 1995).

Lydia Gilkey:

Home Page of Lydia Gilkey at Alabama School for Math and Engineering. http://www.asms.net/faculty/gilkey/index.html

Gail Grella:

I spent seven years, until 1979, in Ithaca not finishing my dissertation, along the way marrying Jonathan Loesberg, a fellow English major. Moved to Boston where I started my career in scholarly publishing at Lexington Books, then moved to the Washington, DC, area in 1982, where I've worked at the Smithsonian Instutition Press and more recently at Georgetown University Press (currently interim and aspiring director). No kids, no pets, discovered gardening at a late age, wine tasting a bit earler, live in the city and love it.

Associate Director and Editor, Georgetown University Press. 3240 Prospect St. NW, phone 202-687-6263. Visit our website http://www.georgetown.edu/publications/gup/

Kathy Keenan:

I left Cornell on a leave of absence in January 1976, prior to starting my dissertation; I stayed in Ithaca and worked, thinking I might return to my program after a year or so. Later that year I had an unfortunate encounter with a telephone pole on Cayuga Heights Road while riding to work with my roommate, and spent the better part of the next couple of years recovering from my injuries and trying to figure out what to do next. I had taken some pottery courses as a diversion while in grad school, and as I spent more time making pots, I found the idea of becoming an artist/craftsperson very appealing. In 1978 I decided to pursue this goal seriously and left Ithaca to get an MFA in ceramics at SUNY New Paltz. When I completed my degree in 1980, I moved to Pennsylvania, set up a studio, and began to show and sell my work. I had some success for a couple of years, but the economics of being a self-supporting craftsperson were daunting. After a series of part-time jobs, in 1984 I found a position doing institutional research at a local community college; the work was interesting and paid better than clerical jobs, and in the beginning it even left me time to continue my ceramics work. Over the next couple of years I discovered that I liked research and was pretty good at it, and that it offered more opportunities than art for an economically stable life.

In 1987 I moved to Massachusetts for a position at a community college in Brockton, where I worked for several years. In 1995 I was hired as the director of institutional research at Massachusetts College of Art, in Boston, where I currently work. It's the perfect job for me. I work in an atmosphere that provides exposure to exciting contemporary art, gives me opportunities to develop some new art and design skills, and values the work of artists. While I haven't been able to do any ceramics for several years now, I have kept working in other media. At the moment I'm exploring the use of alternative photo processes to print images on fabric, which I incorporate into quilted wall hangings. I live in Taunton, about 35 miles south of Boston, with my husband Nick Zapantis, whom I met in my MFA program. At the moment we're in the midst of building a studio behind our house where we'll both have plenty of space to work. Nick designed the building and is doing most of the construction, with periodic assistance from friends; I'm the design advisor, accountant, and unskilled labor. We expect to have the building complete by this spring; then who knows what will happen inside. My life is very far from what I expected when I began the Phud program, but those expectations weren't really grounded in much reality, and I find that I'm pretty happy with where I've ended up.

Tom Kilian:

Tom was a physics major. He went on to graduate school at Cornell in physics. He helped build a detector to study the interactions of 11.8 GeV electrons from the Cornell synchrotron with the protons of a liquid hydrogen target. Around 1977 Tom married Cynthia Price '76. Then he landed a post-doc position at CERN. He later moved to Bell Labs in New Jersey.

Roy King:

He is an associate professor in Psychiatry & Behavioral Science at Stanford.
http://med.stanford.edu/profiles/psychiatry/researcher/Roy_King/

Dennis Kolva:

I dropped out of the phuD program & CU after 1 1/2 years, bought 20 acres and built a house in the woods 8 miles from Ithaca. Then lived without electricity or running water for 9 years. Doing odd jobs and subsistance farming gradually morphed into a plant nursery, then a construction biz. Then that morphed into a software biz 12 yrs ago. My goal is to raise enough money in software so I can build a large greenhouse and llama farm (joke: "what will you do now that you've won the lottery?" "Oh, I'll just keep farming til it's all gone"). I own 100 acres, south of Ithaca, but nowadays I live in town so I can walk to work. Hey, my life has been rather different from the 6-year plan. Seems more noticeable when I attempt to write a resume (which I've never done for a job, so far). Oh well, I've mostly enjoyed it.

John Kroeker:

Phud start: 1969, end: 1978 As I recall, I lived at the Res Club for one year, Giles Street condos for two years, then two at the Magic Theatre, and enjoyed my remaining time out on Lakeshore Drive, ending up, for several months, at a boarding house run by a charming, standard-issue widow. In 1978 I traveled a bit in Europe and India, then loaded my wordlies in my VW bug, and putt-putted to Pasadena for a post-doc at Caltech. A sweet life! Coddled by the administration (can you imagine?), hobnobbing at the Atheneum, and believing my salary to be princely. And no responsibilities whatever at all. Academia didn't sit well with me, and the government grants were the last straw. I suppose the entire faculty at Caltech was involved with one or another private company, so I was encouraged to strike out on my own. Lacking political skills, I naturally chose the entrepreneurial route, with all its technological monomania, exiguous existence, and long-term debt. So with crazy notions, a fiancee, and now two bugs, filled to the brim, off to Boston, with hopes of venture capital and a less-toxic environment in which to raise a family. In 1982 I founded Eliza Corporation, a speech recognition technology company. Looking back on nearly twenty years of near-death experiences, I guess I would do it again. I'm still married, have two children, and make my home in Hamilton, Massachusetts, a small town known for its horse population, decaying gentry, and active insect life.

Cornelius Kubler:

I left Cornell with an M.A. in Linguistics in 1975 to study for a second M.A. in Chinese literature at National Taiwan University in Taipei. I married Jerling Gwo (my girlfriend whom I met during my junior -- actually senior -- year abroad) in 1976. After receiving my Chinese M.A. in 1978, I returned to Cornell for the Japanese FALCON program and graduate studies toward the Ph.D. in Linguistics, which I was finally awarded in 1981 (so I actually ended up being a "12-year Ph.D."!). From 1980-81, I served as Scientific Linguist in Chinese and Cantonese at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI), U.S. Department of State, Washington. From 1981 - 1987, I directed FSI's Chinese Language & Area Studies School in Taipei, Taiwan. In 1988, I became the father of a son, Carl, who is now 19 years old and completing his freshman year at Yale. From 1988 - 1991, I was chair of the Dept. of Asian & African Languages at FSI. In 1991, I moved to Williams College, where I'm the founding chair of the Department of Asian Studies and teach courses in Chinese language, literature, and linguistics. I've written a fair number of books and articles on Chinese language and linguistics. Currently, I'm working on a new Chinese language course in print and on the web, as well as a book on Chinese dialectology. My family and I travel a lot -- most years we spend time in both Asia and Europe. http://www.williams.edu/Asian/kubler.html

Update 12/31/2022: Fortunately, Jerling and I are still in fairly good shape; I'm still happily teaching at Williams and remain active in research, writing, and lecturing in the area of Chinese language pedagogy and linguistics, though I'm trying to cut down on outside commitments. Son Carl married last year, received his Ph.D. this year, and is also embarking on an academic career. Increasingly, I've come to realize that family and friends, as well as good health and one's general outlook on life, ultimately matter most. Best to you all, Neil (ckubler@williams.edu, https://www.williams.edu/dallc/profile/ckubler/)

Andy Lightbourne:

He recently retired as director of academic computing at the University of South Alabama.

Charlotte R. Lin:

Charlotte R. Lin, 4th yr, 1969 Peripatetic Cornell trajectory as bookbinder (Art History), Savoyards character makeup queen (tenor in the Gondoliers chorus!), caterer, culminated in a Math PhD (Logic) in 1977. Taught at MIT a couple years (did theater makeup at Harvard, catered a conference at MIT), then fled the classroom to do rock physics/computer vision R&D at Schlumberger where I married my boss, Robert Porter, a Fellow of the Acoustical and Optical Societies. As VP, Robert established a new Engrg/Mfg Center in Tokyo, while Hitachi gave me their 1st -ever foreign-employee contract, to develop automated VLSI inspection in Yokohama. I ended up at Boeing when Robert left Schlumberger to become chairman of EE at U. Washington. Nomadic corporate-wife career path produced 40+ technical publications in math, physics, geology, geophysics, optics, computing architectures / applications, aerospace applications before I capitulated to the forces of Dilbert... Currently have full program management profit & loss responsibility on $262M contract operating a highly-modified 767 with a 52cm aperture, 2.5 ton infrared telescope + other elements under flight-test. We collect data for development of sensor and communications systems in space applications.

Robert's kids lived with us various years. Melissa (Smith '92, psych; UW '96, zoology) has 2 daughters, Tess and Whidbey, and is expecting again in May 2002. They left Seattle in 1999 for husband John's hometown Pittsfield in western Massachusetts (he's Amherst '91). Tim (Boston College '94, economics) lives in San Francisco after 8 years in Manhattan (his wife is Parsons '95, graphics), where he runs a database group at Barclay Global Investment and Hunju designs websites at Oracle; Max was born 13 September 2001! We have a Husky and a Border Collie mix, and a home near Ashland OR where we are in a Guild that sponsors one of the 11 Oregon Shakespeare Festival productions each year. Robert went Emeritus in 1997, because his Financial Advisor partnership launched 1992 (launch clients were Cornellians, including Phuds) is more fun than academia; the SEC has audited our Seattle home for Y2K-and SEC-compliance.

Update February 2023:

Charlotte got her Liberal Arts BA in 1972 - almost 25% in Independent Study credits from H Peter Kahn for bookbinding. Inspired by 1st-yr Phud Phil Lavori, she got her Cornell Math PhD in 1977, becoming a MIT Research Instructor in Mathematics and a Fellow in Mathematical Logic at Cambridge University. It took a half semester to realize she hated torturing MIT grad students - only mitigated by catering an international logic conference, doing all stage makeup for THE TEMPEST at Harvard and holding her office hours at Harvard. She fled to R&D at Schlumberger and Hitachi, with visiting/adjunct professorships of Geology at the University of S. Carolina and Information Science at the University of Tokyo. When spousal unit Robert Porter accepted University of Washington's EE Department Chairmanship, she turned down an offer from UW Radiology, and started a Boeing Computer Vision group (won a $10M contract to develop/deliver a late 1980s predecessor of UPS Track My Package).

She retired from Boeing in 2007, with assignments that included Manager - Intelligent Sensors & Sensor Fusion Group, Manager - AWACS Program R&D (led to $3/4 billon contracts), AST Program + Technical Director (767-mounted IR telescope!), Chief Engineer of Australia's $2.2B 737 AEW&C Wedgetail Program, and Director of Technical Strategic Planning of a $9B division.

Charlotte serves on the Seattle Repertory Theatre Board of Trustees, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Board of Directors, and the Advisory Council of ArtsFund. Past non-profit Board service includes the Asian Counseling & Referral Service Capital Campaign Committee. She's a Bloodworks Northwest volunteer working with whole-blood blood donors, including recruiting platelet donors.

We still live near Seattle, with a 2nd home in Ashland OR. Kids in San Carlos CA and Pittsfield MA. 5 grandkids in or through undergrad (debt-free thanks to college funds we started at their births), in fact the eldest has only a few months to her JD/M.Ed with 2 years' clerkships already confirmed.

Michael W. Margolick:

Married since 1986 to Mary-Louise, former dancer and dance teacher, now in arts management. Joseph b.1987, Rebecca b.1991. Left Cornell 1972. Lived in Vancouver since 1973. Ph.D. Math, University of British Columbia 1978. Consultant for governments, corporations and agencies on global environmental issues, esp. climate change. Energy, economics, environmental science, development. Also VP Technology of Nai Kun Wind Development Inc., a company formed to develop a very large wind farm in shallow waters off the coast of BC. Hobbies: tai chi, the outdoors, travel.

Kathleen I. McCullough:

I left Ithaca with a Master's degree in Government to go to Med. School. Following my interest (but with little sense of what my work life might end up becoming), I went into Cardiology. The field remains interesting and always changing, so that the way I take care of patients with a given condition now is substantially different than the standard practice which existed when I first trained in it. Both these changes and the changing economics of medicine have led to work taking up more and more of my life each year. In 1988, I pursued my childhood fantasy and began riding horseback. It continues to give me daily joy and helps maintain my sanity and perspective. I ultimately bought a horse of my own, which means that when I am not at work, I am at the barn. Always wanting the challenge, my horse and I compete in Combined Training (3 Day Eventing), a sort of horsey triathalon. We are no where near the Olympic level (those folks make it look easy), but there's always more to learn and new things to attempt. There's a lot of adrenalin involved. I live in a house in the (Boston suburban) woods on a pond with two dogs (Huskey and Malamute), who like nothing more than a good run through the park next door. Somewhere in all this, I make a little time to eat, sleep, and keep in touch with friends. And, hopefully, the Phud reunion. --Kim

Robert F. Nau:

Bob Nau is a Professor of Business Administration in the Fuqua School of Business at Duke.
See http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/faculty/alpha/rnau.htm.

David R. Nelson:

Patricia Schneider Nelson (we met singing in the Sage Chapel Choir) and I have three children: Meredith(19), Chris(17) and Peter (11). Meredith is a sophomore at Cornell who plans to major in genetics and/or marine biology. Chris is a basketball/lacrosse jock entering his junior year of high school. He lettered in both as a sophomore. Too early to tell much about Peter, except that he plays the cello and is obsessed with The Far Side cartoons. Pat got her law degree from Cornell and, after 7 years with a big Boston law firm, has her own litigation/real estate practice in Lexington, MA where we live. I just stepped down as Chair of the Physics Department at Harvard (fortunately, there is a 10-step recovery program for this, which includes a sabbatical....). Pat and I still sing a lot, and I was one of a cast of 100's singing Mahler's Eighth in Boston's Symphony Hall under Benjamin Zander last year.

I have been at Harvard for 25 years, and my efforts in theoretical physics have been directed at understanding two dimensional melting, metallic glasses, polymers, high temperature superconductors, and most recently, biophysics. Even before my daughter entered, I have been returning regularly to Cornell to give seminars and visit my friends in the physics and chemistry departments. I also showed up at Sage Chapel once and, with the help of former Risleyite and Sage accompanist Bill Cowdery, borrowed a choir robe and was a tenor ringer for a Sunday service.

Update 2022: See wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Robert_Nelson

Nancy A. O'Connell:

After graduating from Cornell, I went to the University of Rochester where I earned a M.S. in Biology and a joint PhD in Biology/Neurobiology from the Biology Department and the Center for Brain Research . From there I went to Baltimore as a post-doc in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. I left there when one of the grants funding the Neural Encoding Lab was not renewed and went to the Kresge Hearing Research Lab of the South at LSU Medical Center in New Orleans. After most of my research data from grad school and Hopkins was destroyed in a flood I decided that maybe I should try teaching rather than research. I taught for one year as a sabbatical replacement "Visiting Assistant Professor" at Loyola University in New Orleans. From there I went to the Department of Physiology/Pharmacology at the University of Osteopathic Medicine and Health Science in Des Moines, IA. I am still there but the school changed its name to Des Moines University- The Osteopathic Medical Center. I teach DO and DPM medical students, and prospective physical therapists and physician assistants.

I started horseback riding in Grad school and continued it as I moved around the country. I met my husband David Darrell, an attorney, at a local barn where we were both taking lessons. We were married in 1986 and have two girls, Caitlin (13) and Fallon (who will be 11 July, 2001). I hardly get to ride much any more but both girls ride. This summer Caitlin is going to an English riding camp in upstate New York and Fallon is going to Interlochen to have fun and play the viola. I mainly work and drive them places. After growing up in Manhattan, I find suburban life a little strange, you (and of course your kids) cannot walk to anything but have to take a car everywhere. I got my degree from Cornell about a year before I obtained a driver's license.

Gregory Page:

revised July 2023:

I was in the last group. Maturity was never my long suit and I essentially flunked out the first year. After a year in the wilderness I returned to CU (but not the Program): AB (linguistics), '73. Spent a couple years on an NDFL grad fellowship for studying Cambodian (Khmer), but left my doctoral program in SEAsian linguistics with no degree.

As a senior I had injured my foot and could never run again, so to stay in the sport I started the Cornell women's track & field/cross-country teams. Forty years later I was very honored and surprised to learn that the CU track program decided to name one of its Barton Hall home meets for me. I try to attend the Greg Page Relays each December when the competition schedule for my current team permits, but if they rename it the Greg Page Memorial meet I'm gonna stop showing.

After coaching at Cornell for six years, I assisted the men's teams at Ithaca College, then went to Syracuse U. to get a coaching degree (started the women's teams there, as well)--so my line was that I traded the 6-Year Ph.D. program for a 12-Year M.S. program. I ended up with a 25-year career in college coaching (last stop: NYU, where I met my wife in an adult fitness class)--loved it, but quit in '98 when our two daughters started school and I could no longer justify working 70-80 hours a week for limited pay.

I worked for a couple years as a teacher/editor for Kaplan and a translations proofreader, then went back to school for law and business degrees at Fordham U (Lincoln Center). Graduated in 2004, so now my line is "35-Year JD/MBA program." After graduation I worked as a contract attorney, reviewing documents in various languages (mostly German and Spanish, with the occasional French, Hindi, and Khmer to prepare for litigation. Rather boring but fairly well-paid work, with lots of flexibility for taking care of my family responsibilities when the girls were younger.

In 2018, with my children grown, I returned to coaching as an assistant at Lehman College in the Bronx. The next year I moved to be an assistant at CCNY in Harlem, where I was named interim head coach of track & field earlier this year (2023), following my boss's sudden midyear departure. When I returned to coaching a colleague said, "Well, you coached for 25 years and then took 20 years off, so now you have to coach for another 25 to balance things out." That made sense, so I should be busy until I'm 90. After that I'll reassess.

We live in Greenwich Village, where Pam Parker, also from the fourth group, is (or was -- haven't seen her in some years) a near neighbor. Pam looks just as she did at Cornell--uncannily so; I do not. Folks from the old days occasionally visit NYC and it's always a pleasure to see them again. (We have a spare bedroom and some have stayed over.) Contact info: gpage55 at hotmail dot com, 917-741-8568.

Gregory J. Perreault:

Greg develops oil-well-logging measurement systems at Vector Magnetics in Ithaca, after 7-8 years not finishing his physics PhD (some Raman spectroscopy topic), and subsequent years tending bar.

Gregory Richardson:

After leaving Cornell in '75, I returned home to Lexington, KY, where I taught for 7 years at the Univ. of KY. After "perishing" in the publications game (a delayed victim of Phud burnout, I guess), I moved to a little Baptist college in Rome, GA, where I've been ever since. Very nice, quiet -- a great place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit here. I play violin in the Rome (GA, remember) Symphony Orchestra and sing bass in the Roman (ditto) Renaissance Society. Anyone who remembers me from our Cornell days will probably be glad to know that I'm now a tea-total-er. I'm also married (Shirley, a CPA, 20 years this past August) with one son (Adam, 18), who has just deserted us, allegedly to be a freshman at Rhodes College (Memphis).

Arnold S. Rosenberg:

I left the Phud Program in 1973 to attend Harvard Law School and received my J.D. in 1976. After 25 years of law practice, mostly in San Francisco, now I am on the faculty at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, an independent, fully-accredited law school, where I teach courses on commercial law, consumer protection, bankruptcy and civil procedure. My two children are in college and give me much joy. Teaching has given me time to write, which I have used to publish several law review articles on comparative commercial and consumer law issues and to edit part of a treatise, The Law of Electronic Funds Transfers. My book on the origins and structure of Jewish liturgy is in paperback. Meanwhile, I travel (Tahiti, Berlin, Peru, Venezuela, Montreal, among other destinations) and enjoy my house near the beach.

Reinhard Schumann:

Retired from Associate Technical Director at Broadcom. Specialized in DRAM interfaces including DDR2, DDR3, DDR4, DDR5, LPDDR4, and LPDDR5. Joined Sand Video in 2002, which was subsequently acquired by Broadcom. Multiple patents granted.

Mark Scowcroft:

Catholic U. English Dept. doubles in the Irish studies department.

Bob Smith:

Bob Smith has been in broadcasting since before his 20th birthday, when he landed his first full-time radio job as a reporter/anchor for Syracuse station WHEN in 1973 while simultaneously enrolled in graduate school. Since then, Bob has not only covered and reported the news for stations in Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo, but earned a Ph.D. in American political and legal history from Cornell (May 1977), taught undergraduate American political and diplomatic history courses at Cornell, and managed and co-owned a Rochester-based manufacturing firm supplying component parts to worldwide customers in the auto and aerospace industries as well. In the midst of all that, he's found time for community service, having worked as a member of the Board of Directors of the Rochester Rotary Club and the Small Business Council of the Rochester Chamber of Commerce. He's also author of the first of a series of major task force reports for the Urban League of Rochester which helped launch public school reform in the city. It's that varied background in business, broadcasting and community service that Bob has brought to the Rochester airwaves every weekday since March of 1988 as host of WXXI-AM's daily afternoon talk program, "1370 Connection." We cover our neighborhood in the global village every weekday starting at noon Eastern time.
The show is online at www.wxxi.org as well as airing on 1370 kHz AM in the western and central New York areas.

UPDATE: Bob died in 2017. See https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2017/03/17/longtime-wxxi-radio-host-bob-smith-dies/99299102/

Keith R. Beasley-Topliffe:

Carola and I got married right after graduation. Our only child, Laura, was born in 1978, Animal Science Ag School, living in Risley I spent three years as minicomputer programmer, then went to Boston University School of Theology (M.Div. '78). I spent 9 years as a United Methodist minister, took three years leave (back to computers) while Carola attended seminary (Colgate-Rochester), then another six years of ministry while I also worked toward a Ph.D. in Formative Spirituality at Duquesne.

I am now full-time pastor at Fifth St UMC in Harrisburg. The PhD didn't happen: had to choose between writing dissertation and writing for pay. Chose latter. There are fifteen books in the Upper Room Spiritual Classics. I also did extensive work on The Spiritual Formation Bible. I'm now working on two projects: The Upper Room Dictionary of Christian Spiritual Formation (General Editor) and A Covenant with God (working title, Author!). Carola is still pastor at Rockville. Laura graduated from Cornell (Ag, '00) and after a few months working for Manpower, got a job in her field (Animal Sci) with Mass General Hospital as research tech. She's living with Carola's mother and (2 of 4) sisters in Wellesley and commuting. Part of her Cornell experience was taking Tech Writing from Lauren Cowdery. Keith Beasley-Topliffe, Pastor, 5th St. UMC, Harrisburg, PA. Tenor, Keystone Captal Chorus, SPEBSQSA

Karl Williamson:

(Written in 2007) After 2 years of not liking Cornell very much, I transferred to my home state school--the U of Colorado. I had a hard time deciding what I wanted to do or major in. I ended up graduating in '73 in Math, which I chose in part based on Roy King's observation that it required the fewest hours (true also outside Cornell; Roy was a Res Club roommate of mine). Choosing this major left me time to take classes in other fields, so I almost had majors in History and Anthropology, and a lot of Music classes as well.

I immediately started in a Phd program there in Computer Science, but after 4 years, bailed out with a masters, having decided I didn't really like the life style of a professor. The final straw was someone published the dissertation I was just starting out to do.

I got a job with Bell Labs in Colorado doing software engineering, thinking I'd stay a year or two, but liked it quite a lot and ended up staying 24 years, during which time the name and owners changed numerous times. Especially at first, we were pioneering in a number of ways. I retired in 2001 with the collapse of hi-tech, and the management made us an early-retirement offer few dared to refuse.

I became very interested in the natural world, and spent my vacations travelling around, often doing volunteer work for scientists in places like Madagascar and Panama.

I eventually got married to a woman who had a small child who has now grown up and graduated from Colorado U. in Linguistics. My wife, Beth, retired this year.

Update 2023: I have spent my retirement so far in doing home improvement and maintenance, becoming a Master Gardener, doing various other volunteer work, and recently taking advantage of a program here in Colorado for citizens over 55 that offers essentially no-cost auditing of University classes. I'm learning mainly Biology.

John Young:

I got my BS from Cornell in 1972 and went to UCLA to get my PH.D. in Anatomy in 1977. Since then I have been teaching first-year medical students histology at Howard University in Washington DC. I married a wonderful girl named Paula Spesock in 1977 and we have two boys, Michael and Matthew. My research speciality is studying the hypothalamus of the brain. I have translated two neuroscience books from the Russian and have published a number of books about cells.

Bill Young:

Graduated with a BA from Cornell in 1972 and attended UCLA until my PhD. Lived abroad for quite a few years acquiring fluency in Arabic and doing fieldwork for my degree in anthropology. Taught anthropology for some years at Statesboro in Georgia; subsequently have worked for the Department of Defense in Washington DC. I accompanied troops invading Iraq during Desert Storm as a translator.

Phud advisor, lived in the Res Club:

William Provine:

I died five years ago according to the brain surgeon, but am still here teaching and researching. Marie and I split, but are good friends. I am remarried to Yuka Kawasaki, yk22@cornell.edu. William B. Provine, Charles Alexander Professor of Biological Sciences, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University
added September 2013: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Provine

Will Provine died in 2015. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Provine.

The Res Club Fire

The fire started in the lower-floor lounge. The chair and sofa cushions were filled with plastic foam which broke down during the fire to produce a toxic smoke. This smoke quickly filled the lobby above and seeped into the rooms. When the fire was detected, residents banged on their neighbors' doors to wake them, then attempted escape as best they could. Jeffrey Smith ran into the lobby, trying to get to the front doors, but was overcome by smoke and died there. Marti Beck tried to get out through her window, but was overcome, slipped between wall and desk, and died there. Peter Cooch died. Professor John Finch escaped, but went back into the building to help others and died. Some of the women on the upper floor went out the windows and either stood on ledges or were helped to jump to the ground. Others leaned out of windows while smoke flowed above them. In all, nine people died in the fire. Most of those who escaped the building made their way to a nearby sorority. In the next few days, the survivors scattered. A number of the people in the Six-Year Ph.D. Program had joined fraternities, sororities, and co-ops, which took them in. One group took an apartment together in Collegetown.

Civic rituals were held: a university assembly, a dinner, a memorial service. An inquest was held. It was inconclusive, though the evidence is very strong that the fire was arson. There had been a fire at the ResClub a few weeks before: in the early hours someone had set fire to the contents of a trashcan placed in the center of the lounge area in the ResClub lobby, burning the carpet. There were urine stains around the trashcan. A few weeks after the ResClub fire, there was a fire at the Collegetown apartment, again suspected as arson.

-- Mark Heumann

_________________________________________________________________

It was arson. Someone in the first year of the program went off the deep end and set chemical fires at the ends of both of the ground floor halls of the Res Club in the early morning hours. People who went out windows or stayed in their rooms until rescued mostly survived. People who simply went out into the halls didn't. Subsequently two other fires were set in places to which first year Phuds had moved - no casualties. The perpetrator was eventually identified and apprehended, and was in legal/psychological custody by the time the second year arrived in Ithaca. My information comes from Steven Parrish, original administrative director of the program and subsequently one of my Ph. D. thesis advisors -- it's a long story -- and from several people whom I knew in the first year.

-- Martha Mattus

_________________________________________________________________

The night of April 5, I was working late in my room on a paper for Allan Bloom's Government 462 course. I was writing on the character Polus in Plato's GORGIAS. I had open in front of me the translation by Jowett in a two volume set from the Random House Modern Library which I had taken to Cornell from my father's library. I heard a noise in the corridor and went out and found smoke. I tried to set off the fire alarm, then I knocked on several doors to wake people up, and then I made my escape out the window in my first floor bedroom. Some of us tried to get a ladder from a nearby fraternity to help the people on the second floor. We also crawled around to the top of the kitchen in back of the Club in order to see if we could help anyone there. I was alert and wide awake, so I could do these things. Most of the students were drowsy from sleep and dazed by what was happening. I still have that Jowett Plato, stained by smoke on the page to which it was opened.

-- Diego Benardete

An Alternate Explanation of the Res Club Fire

If this is the same fire I heard about when I cleaned this Dormitory (AKA Hurlburt House), a fire inspector that had come through the building had told me a different story than what is on your web site. Apparently this Fire inspector (close to retirement, if not retired already) told me when we were in the basement that he would have possibly been made fire marshall if he didn't voice what he said was the REAL cause of the fire. He told me that, with the renovations, the old curtains were brought down to the basement for storage and put in the furnace room. The dust from the curtains caught fire when the furnace fired up that night. The curtains then ignited which sent smoke through the air ducts (forced air). The air ducts poured smoke into the rooms and hallways making it virtually impossible to see the exit. The thickness and toxicity of the smoke killed those within minutes before reaching the main door. He pointed to various places on the lobby floor where he says bodies lay. "The floor," he told me, "had clear spots where the bodies lay with ashes all around. The bodies were removed rather quickly, possibly to cover up what happened here." He went on to tell me that the whole arsonist or occultist theories were to distract the fact that the curtains, which were flammable, should have never been stored in a room with a furnace.

Photos

inside

outside

Summer 2013 - 2015 Investigation

The investigation has continued in various ways into 2015. I (Robert Lewis) was contacted in spring 2015 by a police investigator on this question. I think the man was working for Tompkins County, so Bill Fogle's efforts are bearing fruit.

Update, April 2016: More evidence makes it very clear that the "probable arsonist" mentioned above is indeed the arsonist. Bill has unearthed a letter written by a Cornell vice president about two weeks after the fire strongly implying a cover-up was underway.

Letter to a friend that Mark Heumann wrote soon after the Res Club fire:

Click here

Chronology of the Fire and Its Investigation by Bill Fogle. August 15, 2017:

Click here

April 13, 2018: Article in the New York Times: Never Solved, a College Dorm Fire Has Become One Man's Obsession

Another good article on the fire from January 2018. It has photos I'd never seen anywhere else:

Click here

More History and Comments on Phuds

May 18, 2008. Recent additions: accounts of Pete A., Karl Williamson, Matthew Clark.

January 27, 2010: Added John and Bill Young, several smaller updates.

January 29, 2010: Added Roy King, Karen Dempsey, Edgar Blaustein, updated several web links, added two photos taken after the fire, and a lounge photo.

September 2013: various updates, including news of Bill Fogle's arson investigation.

August 2015: death of Bruce Deitchman, accounts of Craig Saltzer, Marcia Skalnik, research link for Georg Deutsch.

April 2016: more on the fire, accounts of Ed Whitfield and David Boochever, updated Pete Klosterman.

July 2017: fixed many broken links.

August 2017: added a letter that Mark Heumann wrote to a friend soon after the Res Club fire.

August 2017: added Chronology of the Fire and Its Investigation by Bill Fogle.

April 2018: updated Rita Goldberg and Bob Lewis. Link to NY Times article on the fire.

The Cornell Daily Sun, Volume 65, Number 86, 11 December 1969 has an article "Fuds Comment on Seminars."

June 2019: updated Bob Nau, Gilbert Allen, Bob Lewis, Jonathan Katz. Added Hugh Bergknoff. Added January 2018 article from medium.com.

April 2020: added Pat Lisko.

May 2020: updated Tony Sastre, Bill Provine, Marguerite Waller.

August 2022: updated Berger, Katz, Keeler, Lewis, Nau, Nelson, Klingbeil-Lamm, Tomas.

December 2022: added John Burkett, updated Kubler, Heumann, Katz, Lewis.

February 2023: updated Deitchman, Ferguson, Lin.

March 2023: added Leon King, Tom Kilian, updated Harding. Updated Ferrero.

July 2023: updated Gregory Page, Marvant Duhon.

August 2023: added Mark Budwig; updated Susan Meld (Shell), Howie Bursen, Paul Mermin, Christine Shepherd, Phil Lavori, Tim McKibbin, Roy Stephenson, Neil Wasserman.

September 2023: update Paavola, Acres, Mattus.

October 2023: update Williamson and Bob Smith; add Lightbourne and Anderson; update Hunt; add Schumann.

Errors, comments: email to rlewis att fordham dott edu