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Dear
Alumni:
 It is with great
sadness that I inform you that our dear friend and colleague Randy Pausch
passed away today, July 25, after a brave struggle against pancreatic cancer.
Randy
captured the minds and hearts of millions worldwide with his Carnegie Mellon
lecture, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," and his book,
"The Last Lecture."
Randy,
who earned his doctorate from Carnegie Mellon in 1988, returned to the
university in 1997 as an associate professor of human-computer interaction
and computer science. Along with Carnegie Mellon Professor Don Marinelli,
Randy was the co-founder of the Entertainment Technology Center, a leading
interactive multimedia education and entertainment center.
At
Carnegie Mellon, Randy was also the director of the Alice software project, a
revolutionary way to teach computer programming. The interactive Alice
program teaches computer programming by having kids make animated movies and
games. A fitting legacy to Randy's life and work, Alice may in the future
help to reverse the dramatic drop in the number of students majoring in
computer science at colleges and universities. Randy was also known as a
pioneer in the development of virtual reality, and he created the popular
Building Virtual Worlds class.
An
award-winning teacher and researcher, Randy was also a National Science
Foundation Presidential Young Investigator and a Lilly Foundation Teaching
Fellow. He used sabbatical leaves to work at Walt Disney Imagineering and
Electronic Arts (EA), and he consulted with Google Inc. on user interface
design. He is the author or co-author of five books and more than 70
articles.
Perhaps
the greatest lesson, however, Randy taught us all was how to live, even in
the face of great challenges, and how to follow our passion. While Randy's
greatest passion was clearly his family, he did not shy from sharing his
passion for his work as a professor, for his students, and for Carnegie
Mellon. We will miss Randy, but we will carry the memory of him and all that
he did to make Carnegie Mellon a better university and each of us who knew
him a better person.
A
memorial service for Randy will be scheduled at a later date. For more
information, visit www.cmu.edu.
Sincerely,
Jared L.
Cohon
President, Carnegie Mellon University
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Office
of Alumni Relations
Carnegie Mellon University
5017 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
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