this mornign I was thumbing through a n issue of Technology Review, my college’s magazine. The magazine is for sale . but In the edition for Alums theres also a section that keeps tabs on former alums. I tuned to 1981 expecting to see the same short paragraph asking for more input from my class. This time there was a long entry.. I read and was shocked and saddened to see the obit of my friend Lisa P.  She’d dies in August after years of living with breast cancer

Lisa lived in the girls dorm McCormick where I went every wed and/or thursday night to work on Course VI (electrical engineering)  problem sets..  I have so many memories of working there till almost sunup on problem sets for  6.011, 6.012, 6.013 . 6.014, 6.015  She was in Course III (material science) . but she still hung out with us nerds. Lisa was bright and funny nd an excellent musician.. .. I remember her once belting out a Katchturian sonata on the old piano in our dorm.  (Lisa grew up as an armenian maerican… and loved anything to do wiht Armenia)

As I read her obit I learned that she’d gotten into Juliard as well as MIT .. and might have been a concert pianist instead of  what she became which was an expert in molecular beam epitaxy.   It was nice and sad reading about her life since school, she went off to work, got a PhD, met the love of her life Scott while taking flying lessons, , adopted twin girls from Romania…met her birth mother, traveled the world. gave talks, kept in touch with friends…… and developed breast cancer. which she lived wiht for many years before dying last august.

Her husband made a nice video of Lisa life.. she looked happy. In that vid was this picture

Lisa is in the center, over her on her left is nancy, to her left is jenny, below jenny is hiedi,, to heidie’s left is lauren , to lernd left is marie, to maries right is mary (i think) and to lisas right is wizzy, i think..   I haven’t seen any of them in 33 years.. but I think of them whenever I see maxwells equations.  I have no idea what any of them are up to now.. but After reading about Lisa’s life and watching that video, I felt a real need to connect with all those folks.. I’ve been searching them out on linked in and facebook today .. just to reconnect…   not urgently.. just seems like the right time to try…

my thoughts are with lisa and her family..

night all, night sam

-me