Francis H. Burr ’36

Francis H. “Hooks” Burr ’36, a former chairman of the Harvard Corporation who spent most of his adult life at Harvard, passed away Nov. 25 in Boston. He was 90.

Burr, who served as a Fellow of the College in the Harvard Corporation from 1954 to 1982, was a leader in the presidential search that led to the appointment of Derek Bok in 1971.

“I always felt tremendously supported even when I was in bad weather or making mistakes. He was never passing judgment, he was just there to just to try to help figure things out,” Bok said of his long-time friend.

To friends, Burr was known as “Hooks,” a nickname inherited from his uncle, according to his brother Tucker Burr ’39.

“Everyone knew him by that name,” his brother said.

After his undergraduate years, Burr obtained a degree from Harvard Law School in 1938 and then joined the law firm of Ropes, Gray, Best, Coolidge and Rugg.

Burr had a strong interest in health care, a passion that served him well as a fellow of the Harvard Corporation, according to Bok.

Burr served as a trustee of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) from 1962 to 1987, spending his last five years as chairman of the MGH Board of Trustees.

“During his tenure he had a huge impact and really shaped the hospital as a much better hospital,” said MGH President Peter Slavin.

Slavin said Burr made two major contributions to the hospital, including leading the effort to raise $165 million for new buildings and working to create Partners HealthCare, an integrated health care system with MGH and Brigham and Women’s hospitals.

In 1982 Burr was awarded an honorary doctorate in recognition of his service to the University. In 1985, Burr received the Harvard Medal for service to the University and was the Chief Marshal of Harvard’s 350th Anniversary Celebration in 1986.

Burr is survived by his wife Lucy Burr and her children Wenonah and David W. Devins, as well as three children from his first marriage to the late Nancy B. Pell: Samuel H. Burr, Nancy P. Hayden, and Alice N. Pell. He also leaves nine grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and another brother, John T. Burr ’42.

Donald Carswell ’50

Donald Carswell ’50, NBC executive and leader of numerous community organizations in his native Brooklyn, died on March 25 of leukemia. He was 75.

At Harvard, Carswell was a Crimson editor and was most well-known for his op-ed, “Beating the System,” that detailed how to do well on Harvard exams without really studying. The Crimson has run this op-ed every reading period since its debut on June 12, 1950. The op-ed won Carswell the Dana Reed Prize in 1951 for excellence in undergraduate writing and provoked a seething “Grader’s Reply” in 1962.

Carswell later went on to spend 36 years at NBC Television, working his way up from financial trainee in 1956 to senior vice president for finance in 1979. Carswell retained this post until 1990 when he assumed the title of Chief Financial Officer. He retired from NBC in 1992.

During his time at NBC, Carswell oversaw the budgets of numerous popular television shows, including “Cheers,” “The Cosby Show,” and “Seinfeld.”

Carswell was also a leading member of the Brooklyn community, most recently joining the board of the Brooklyn Hospital Foundation. He was also a trustee of the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. In addition, Carswell assisted in the establishment of Brooklyn Community Access Television, a station that aired the public awareness program “HealthWatch” which he helped create and write.

Furthermore, Carswell served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn, NY, his alma mater. Under his leadership, Poly underwent unprecedented growth, according to Vincent J. Vigorita, who will succeed Carswell as Chairman of the Board.

“He was a remarkable person because he provided all this community service while never really seeking any personal pretension or accolades,” Vigorita said. “Anyone that knew him knew he was a man of great humor.”

Carswell is survived by his wife, Lois ’53; a daughter, Anne Carswell Tang; two sons, Alexander and Robert Ian; a brother, Robert; and four grandchildren.

Robert White Creeley

Robert White Creeley, Class of 1947, a respected and innovative poet known for his brevity and unique use of phrasing, died March 30 at a hospital in Odessa, Texas. He was 78.

Creeley had been on leave from Brown University to attend a two-month literary residency in Marfa, Texas when he became seriously ill. He died of complications from pulmonary fibrosis.

Creeley was admitted to Harvard University in 1943 but left to become an ambulance driver in India for the American Field Service during World War II. Though he dropped out shortly before his 1947 graduation, he taught poetry at Harvard during the summer of 1972. He had also been invited to speak at this year’s Harvard Phi Beta Kappa ceremony.

“[Creeley’s relationship to Harvard] was more of a love-hate relationship,” recalled Louisa Solano, the owner of the historic Grolier Poetry Book Shop on Plympton Street—a place Creeley frequented as an undergraduate.

Solano said she knew Creeley well and was greatly distressed by the death of such a “warm” and “compassionate” man.

“I feel that the world of poetry has been shaken by his death,” Solano said.

Ruth Lepson—a poet and teacher who says she views Creeley as her mentor—recalls how he was often asked how his ideas flow so easily onto the paper.

“‘When you are swimming in the ocean, you can’t control it,’” Lepson recalled Creeley saying.

According to Lepson, Creeley is said to have studied the rifts and phrases of jazz legends like Charlie Parker to develop a sense of style. He even had several of his poems set to music by his friend Steve Lacey, she said.

He had a great genius for sound and the ways that sound and pause create meaning. Because of this, he was the best reader of his own work, she said.

Lepson also discussed the ups and downs of Creeley’s life.

“Happily and sadly are perhaps the two words he wrote most—always seeing two sides,” said Lepson. “I’ve never seen such a happy-sad person in all my life.”

Writing and editing more than 60 works, Creeley received numerous honors for his efforts—including a Guggenheim fellowship, Yale University’s 1999 Bolligen Prize in Poetry, the Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, two Fulbright fellowships, and a National Book Award nomination.

Always a New Englander, Creeley, lived in Providence R.I. with his wife Penelope. He is also survived by his first two wives, Ann MacKinnon and Bobbie Louise Hawkins, and by his eight children.

Hope H. Davis

Hope H. Davis, a writer, lifelong feminist and Radcliffe professor, died of pneumonia on October 2 at Wingate at Brighton physical rehabilitation center. She was 100.

Davis served as a Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe in the 1980s and soon became a professor of writing in the Radcliffe Seminar Program. She continued teaching until one month before her death.

As primarily a teacher of journal writing, Davis strove to walk “the thin line between helping her students work on their writing and emancipating them as people,” recalled her daughter Lydia Davis of Port Ewen, N.Y.

A conscientious and invested teacher, Davis challenged her students to use language precisely to express themselves. She did not hesitate to criticize famous authors’ grammar even though she never graduated from college.

Davis was born in Iowa City, Iowa but later lived in New York and Washington D.C., promoting feminism during World War I and the Roaring ’20s. During the Depression she worked for the Agricultural Adjustment Agency and privately became a communist.

Communism lost its appeal for Davis after Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union signed the nonaggression pact early in World War II, her children told the Boston Globe in 1993. But Davis remained vocal about progressive issues through her speeches and writing.

“She was always very aware of environmental groups, the ACLU and Doctors Without Borders and knew which ones were good and which were not,” recalled her son Stephen H. Davis of New York City. She also became more focused on creative writing and wrote short stories for The New Yorker. Davis published a collection of her fiction called A Dark Way to the Plaza and later a memoir entitled Great Day Coming.

As a professor at Radcliffe in the ’80s and ’90s, Davis taught a variety of writing seminars such as, “How to Keep a Journal” and “Autobiography as Detective Story.” She was named Teacher of the Year at Radcliffe when she was in her nineties.

Besides her son Stephen and daughter Lydia, Davis is survived by four grandchildren.

Maureen T. Haley

Maureen T. Haley, a quiet, but popular dining hall checker who logged three decades at Currier House, died October 1, after a yearlong battle with cancer. She was 65.

Haley began her career at Harvard in 1965, working in dining halls that were then affiliated with Radcliffe. She switched to part-time work when her three children were born, but returned to work full-time in Currier in 1972, according to friend and fellow dining hall worker, Diane A. Freedman, who refers to Haley as the “front-of-the-house lady.”

Haley has checked IDs and greeted generations of students who came to know her as Miss Maureen, “the lady who listened.”

“She made an effort to know all the students who came into the dining hall,” said Barbara S. Graham, former co-Master of Currier House. “Without IDs she knew them all.”

One of Haley’s three sons, Stephen Haley, has worked in the dining hall alongside his mother since he was 16 years old. The younger Haley spent the last year at home with his mother.

Now in his 30s, he remembers his mother’s relationships with others and the supportive presence she was for him.

“My experience was great,” said Stephen Haley of his time working near his mother. “We were tight, we helped each other out. She looked forward to going to work, and so did I.”

Even as she neared retiring age she never liked to think of leaving work, said Freedman.

“Her family was first, but this was like an extension of her family here,” said Freedman. “She would say, ‘what am I going to do at home? This is my life here.’”

Haley has spent the last year on extended medical leave, said Patricia G. Pepper, assistant to the Currier House Masters.

Dining hall staff members said they are universally saddened by the loss.

“She touched the lives of everyone here,” remembered Catherine M. Marks, who works as a server in Currier.

A card for her family was filled with signatures, and Freedman said many students were present at Haley’s wake and funeral, which took place at Our Lady of Mercy Church, in Belmont, on October 4.

Haley is survived by three sons: Stephen, Philip, and John Jr. Haley.

Rafiq Hariri

In an incident that sparked an international diplomatic flare-up, the former prime minister of Lebanon—a benefactor of the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) and an opponent of Syrian involvement in Lebanon—died on February 14 when a massive explosion ripped through his motorcade in Beirut. He was 60.

Rafiq Hariri amassed a large fortune in Saudi Arabia, where he created a construction company that became one of the largest in the Middle East. He used this money to support a variety of causes, including education and the rebuilding of Lebanon.

In 1992, Hariri established the Rafiq Hariri Professorship of International Political Economy at the KSG, which is currently held by Professor Dani Rodrik.

Hariri also established the Hariri Foundation in 1979. This foundation, dedicated to providing educational opportunities for Lebanese scholars, has provided funds to help students at the Kennedy School studying Lebanon.

Wissam Yafi, a 2002 KSG graduate, did research in the summer of 2000 on development in Lebanon since the end of its civil war. His research was funded by the Hariri Foundation, and Hariri helped him gain access to government officials and records.

Yafi predicted that Hariri’s death would not be the end of his legacy.

“You just don’t kill Hariri’s vision; you build on it,” he said.

David J. Thompson, the public relations coordinator for the Hariri Foundation in the United States, said the foundation will continue to promote Hariri’s mission of education.

“The whole [Hariri] family is dedicated to the cause of Lebanon, and especially to building up its human resources through education,” Thompson said. “I anticipate that dedication will not change.”

In a message posted on the KSG website, Dean David T. Ellwood ’75 called Hariri “a distinguished member of the Kennedy School’s extended family” and expressed sadness over the death of “one of the most influential and most forward-looking leaders in the Middle East.”

“His philanthropic activities have benefited organizations and individuals around the world...The Kennedy School has greatly benefited from Mr. Hariri’s generosity,” Ellwood wrote.

Geron Iakovos

Archbishop Geron Iakovos, leader of the Greek Orthodox Church in America for 37 years and a graduate of Harvard Divinity School, died on April 10 from a pulmonary ailment. He was 93.

Iakovos headed the two million followers of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America from 1959 to 1996.

He graduated with his second Master’s degree from the Harvard Divinity School in 1945.

Iakovos was a strong supporter of ecumenism, which he described in 1960 as “the hope for international understanding, for humanitarian allegiance, for true peace based on justice and dignity, and for God’s continued presence and involvement in modern history.”

He was instrumental in establishing dialogues between the Orthodox and other churches in the U.S. and also received widespread media attention for marching with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965 as a show of his support for improved race relations and human rights.

In a speech at Iakovos’ New York City funeral service on April 14, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Iakovos “truly walked the walk, talked the talk.”

Iakovos also became the first Greek Orthodox archbishop to meet with a Roman Catholic Pope in 350 years when he met Pope John XXIII in 1959.

He spent nine years on the World Council of Churches and met with every U.S. president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to William J. Clinton. Jimmy Carter awarded him the Medal of Freedom in 1980.

Iakovos maintained traditional Orthodox beliefs such as opposing female ordination, but came into conflict with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of the Greek Orthodox Church after he supported a move by 29 bishops towards the administrative unification of Eastern Orthodox churches in America. It is widely believed that this clash forced him to resign in 1996.

Iakovos was born Demetrios Coucouzis in 1911 in Imvros, Turkey. In 1934 he received a Master’s degree from Istanbul’s Ecumenical Patriarch’s Theological School and was ordained to the Church in Lowell, Mass. in 1940. He became a U.S. citizen in 1950.

Stanley J. Korsmeyer

Stanley J. Korsmeyer, pioneering cancer researcher and beloved Harvard Medical School (HMS) professor, passed away on March 31 after more than a year-long struggle with lung cancer. He was 54.

As director of the Program in Molecular Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Korsmeyer was best known for his research in “programmed” cell death, or apoptosis.

At the time of his passing, Korsmeyer and his colleagues were trying to manipulate apoptosis molecules to force cancer cells to self-destruct, according to a press release from the Dana-Farber Institute.

Korsmeyer received his M.D. in 1976 from the University of Illinois in Chicago. He served as chief of the Division of Molecular Oncology at the University of Washington and eventually joined the Dana-Farber Institute in 1998. He became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in 2000.

A non-smoker, Korsmeyer was diagnosed with lung cancer in the winter of 2004. According to Edward J. Benz Jr., Dana-Farber’s president, Korsmeyer continued working until just a week before his death.

During Korsmeyer’s illness, Benz said, “He had two priorities: his family and the people who worked for him.”

Described as an “omnivorous” worker, Korsmeyer was admired by many for his generous spirit.

“Stan was different,” said friend and colleague Stephen Sallan. “Uniformly, 100 percent loved by all of us.”

Korsmeyer is survived by his wife, Susan J. (Reynard) Korsmeyer, sons Jason Louis and Evan John Korsmeyer, and parents Willard and Carnell Korsmeyer.

b>Saunders Mac Lane

Saunders Mac Lane, an influential mathematician and former Harvard professor who co-founded category theory, died on April 14 from internal bleeding from heart disease. He was 95.

Mac Lane was most famous for the ground-breaking paper he co-wrote with Samuel Eilenberg of Columbia in 1945 which introduced category theory, a framework to show how mathematical structures relate to each other. This branch of algebra has since influenced most mathematical fields and also has functions in philosophy and linguistics, but was first dismissed by many practical mathematicians as too abstract to be useful.

Gade University Professor of Mathematics Barry Mazur, a friend of the late Mac Lane, recalled that the paper had at first been rejected from a lower-caliber mathematical journal because the editor thought that it was “more devoid of content” than any other he had read.

“Saunders wrote back and said, ‘That’s the point,’” Mazur said. “And in some ways that’s the genius of it. It’s the barest, most Beckett-like vocabulary that incorporates the theory and nothing else.”

The Norwich, Conn. local received his bachelor’s degree at Yale in 1930 and a master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1931, before going on to obtain a doctorate from the University at Gottingen, Germany in 1934.

After brief teaching stints at several colleges, including Harvard, he later returned to the University of Chicago and remained a professor there for over three decades.

His brother, David Mac Lane, explained that despite his prominence, the famed mathematician was often reluctant to take on administrative posts.

“He was more interested in ideas and creativity than administrative duties,” David Mac Lane said. “Mathematics was the major function of his life....He loved to teach and do research and he enjoyed his work at Harvard very much.”

Mac Lane is survived by his brother, David, his second wife, Osa, two daughters, and a grandson.

John E. Mack

John E. Mack, a Pulitzer Prize winning biographer and Cambridge psychiatrist who researched victims of alien encounters, died after being hit a by a car on September 27. He was 74.

Mack, who graduated from Harvard Medical School (HMS) in 1955, was the author of 11 books, including his acclaimed biography of T.E. Lawrence—better known as Lawrence of Arabia—entitled “A Prince of Our Disorder.”

He founded the department of psychiatry at The Cambridge Hospital in the late 1960s and became a professor of psychiatry at HMS in 1972.

Mack later founded Cambridge Hospital’s Center for Psychology and Social Change—renamed the John Mack Institute in the summer of 2004—to explore “consciousness and transformation,” according to the group’s website.

Mack’s research focused on people who had gone through life-changing or traumatic experiences, including those he called “experiencers” of alien encounters.

Mack’s sister, Mary Lee Ingbar of Cambridge, Mass., said that her brother’s research demonstrated his fascination with how people respond to trauma that is hard for others to understand. “When you look at his career and all his interests, he was a person with great curiosity and great empathy, and a willingness to pursue the interests of his heart with unrelenting vigor.”

Colleagues in the John Mack Institute stated that through Mack’s clinical care of people who have survived disturbing events, he found his own sense of spiritual enrichment. Mack dedicated his last book, “Passport to the Cosmos,” published in 1999, “To the experiencers, who have been my teachers.”

HMS Professor of Neurobiology Edward A. Kravitz met Mack at the September 2003 Harvard Mind, Brain, Behavior Junior Symposium: “Schizophrenia, Dreams, and Alien Encounters.”

Kravitz described Mack as “a really lively, engaging and fascinating man. He was controversial, but highly intelligent, very articulate, and just plain fun to be with.”

Mack died Sept. in London, England after he was struck by a driver as he was returning from the T. E. Lawrence Society Symposium at Oxford.

In addition to his sister, Mack is survived by his ex-wife Sally Stahl; three sons—Daniel, of Boulder, Colo., Kenneth, of Almaty, Kazakhstan and Tony, of Cambridge; and two grandchildren.

Ernst Mayr

Evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, often called the “Darwin of the 20th century,” died Feb. 3 at his retirement community in Bedford, Mass. He was 100.

Mayr, who was born in Kempten, Germany, in 1904, was a member of the Harvard faculty for over half a century. He joined the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) as Agassiz Professor of Zoology in 1953 after holding a position at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Mayr was most renowned for his work in the field of evolutionary biology; he integrated Darwin’s theory of natural selection and Mendel’s theory of heredity to form the neo-Darwinist evolutionary synthesis that is still widely accepted today.

Although Mayr retired from his official professorship in 1975, he retained an active position in the world of science right up to his death. He published his 25th book in August last year, just a month after his 100th birthday. He also contributed to over 660 scientific papers in his lifetime.

“He never retired,” Mayr’s daughter Susanne Harrison said. “Technically he may have, but he always had five or six projects on his agenda. He never got to the point where he said ‘That’s enough’ and sat back to enjoy life–for him enjoying life was doing what he did, writing and researching.”

Mayr also pioneered the study of the history and philosophy of biology, areas previously neglected by other biologists.

Scott V. Edwards, a student of Mayr’s and his successor to the Agassiz professorship, remembered his first encounter with his mentor. It was prior to his own overseas research, when Mayr told him to “write, write, write.”

“His dedication to excellence and productivity set a high standard for all biologists,” Edwards said.

“As a professor, museum director, benefactor to our library of comparative zoology, and leading mind of the 20th century, he shaped and articulated modern understanding of biodiversity and related fields,” Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby said in a press release. “With sadness, we note his passing; with gratitude, we thank him for his legacy.”

He is survived by two daughters, five grandchildren, and ten great grandchildren.

Dennis N. Skotis

Former Harvard professor Dennis N. Skiotis, the director of undergraduate studies in the history department for more than 10 years, died of complications from pneumonia on Oct. 19 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was 67.

Skiotis was a popular teacher at Harvard who was known for his lectures on military history, said friend John T. Trumpbour, the research director of the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School.

Skiotis, who was also the associate director of Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies from 1976 to 1985, received the Dean’s Letter of Commendation for Excellence in Teaching numerous times and regularly appeared on CNN, BBC, PBS and NPR to comment on military affairs.

“So many people knew him,” said Trumpbour. “He had such a wide range of friends, from the far left to the far right. He could talk to anybody.”

Skiotis attended Athens College on a scholarship, and then made his way to the United States as a Rotary Fellow at Bates College in Maine, where he majored in English. He then continued his education at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, where he received a master’s degree in international relations in 1963.

Skiotis served as assistant professor of history at Harvard during the 1970s while pursuing a doctorate in history and Middle Eastern studies, which he obtained in 1971.

On Oct. 24, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said in a statement, “[A]ll of us in Congress who knew him and worked with him over the years had immense respect for his vast learning and wisdom on issues in the Middle East.”

Skiotis provided valuable help to the Senate Subcommittee on Refugees when conflict erupted between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus, wrote Kennedy.

“In a sense, we were all his students. We have lost a wonderful teacher, and we will miss him very much,” Kennedy wrote.

Skiotis leaves behind his wife Mary and two daughters, Litsa and Anna Marie.

Lea F. Sullivan ’01

Lea F. Sullivan ’01, a former Cabot House computer science concentrator, passed away November 8 after a medical school acquaintance attacked her with a baseball bat on a crowded Philadelphia street corner. She was 25.

Philadelphia detectives allege that Nader Ali, who attended Jefferson Medical College with Sullivan, struck her on the back of the head outside a supermarket on November 7.

Ali reportedly drove away from the crime scene—but not before bystanders took down his license plate number.

Police told the Philadelphia Inquirer that Ali and Sullivan had “very limited contact” while the two were at Jefferson Medical College.

“Ali was placed on a medical leave of absence during the last academic year because of an extreme change in behavior,” said Phyllis M. Fisher, a spokesperson for Thomas Jefferson University, which oversees Jefferson Medical College.

Sullivan was rushed to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital after the attack and doctors pronounced her dead at 2:36 p.m. on November 8, Fisher said.

Sullivan, 25, was in her third year of study at Jefferson Medical College and had been involved in the school’s student council.

At Harvard, Sullivan lived in Thayer Hall as a freshman and played on the varsity lacrosse team for two years. Those who played lacrosse with Sullivan “are devastated and heartbroken,” said former teammate Megan Austin ’01.

“She was an incredible woman,” said Courtney H. Leimkuhler ’01, who described Sullivan as a “quiet force on the team.”

Before Harvard, Sullivan was a three-sport athlete and homecoming queen at Radnor High School in suburban Philadelphia, Pa.

Karen C. Tseng ’01, a third-year at Harvard Law School who also attended Radnor, said that Sullivan easily gained the universal affection of her high school classmates.

“No question she is one of the kindest, most down-to-earth, sweetest people I ever met,” said Tseng, who first met Sullivan when the two were in second grade. “She was a class act.”

Kenzo Tange

Kenzo Tange, the face of 20th-century Japanese architecture, rebuilder of the city of Hiroshima after it was destroyed by an atomic bomb in 1945, and one-time Harvard lecturer, died on March 22 of heart failure at his home in Tokyo. He was 91.

Tange, winner of the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1987, lectured at Harvard in 1972 in the Graduate School of Design (GSD) and also received an honorary doctorate from the University.

He was best known for his bold merging of Japanese and Western aesthetic values and innovatively creative forms. Prime examples of these principles are his internationally-renowned twin stadiums for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics and St. Mary’s Cathedral in Tokyo. The redesign and reconstruction of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing which devastated it in 1945 was his first professional commission, and is still among his most lauded work.

Tange also attracted worldwide attention for his ambitious—and ultimately unfulfilled—plan for the development of Tokyo. He was commissioned to design for many foreign countries as well, among them Singapore, Kuwait, Italy, Australia and the U.S.

Eduard Sekler, Professor of Architecture Emeritus at GSD, who met Tange at the last meeting of the International Congress for Modern Architecture in 1959 and had remained friends with him ever since, commended Tange’s achievements.

“I consider Kenzo Tange one of the greatest architects in the second half of the twentieth century,” he said. “He has certainly been a trail-blazing figure for Japanese architecture.”

Tange was born in Osaka, Japan, and did not originally intend to become an architect, but rather showed an interest in astronomy. However, once he was exposed to the designs of Le Corbusier as a youth, there was no turning back.

He moved seamlessly from student to professor and then professor emeritus of architecture at Tokyo University and was greatly involved in teaching and lecturing his whole life.

“He educated a whole generation and became a model for them,” said Sekler. “There was always Kenzo Tange to measure themselves against.”

He is survived by his second wife, Takako Iwata, and their architect son, Noritaka.

H. Richard Uviller ’51

H. Richard Uviller ’51, Levitt Professor Emeritus of Law at Columbia University and expert on criminal law, died on April 19 after battling bladder cancer. He was 75.

Uviller received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard, focusing on psychology and social relations.

“I know that he loved it at Harvard and that he was very involved. He was very engaged and happy in his work,” said Ellen Keniston, Uviller’s sister, who resides in Cambridge.

After graduating from Harvard College in 1951, Uviller went on to receive his law degree from Yale Law School in 1953.

By all accounts, Uviller had a true passion for criminal law and constitutional law.

After graduating from law school, Uviller worked in the Office of Legal Counsel, part of the United States Department of Justice. As this job did not permit him direct contact with persons who needed legal aid, Uviller left the Department for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, where he worked for 14 years.

At the District Attorney’s Office, Uviller was named chief of the Appeals Bureau. He argued nine cases before the United States Supreme Court, and some of the cases that he argued are still studied in law school courses today.

He was known for balancing his devotion to the protection of civil liberties with a strong respect for the needs of the state.

Uviller was offered a position at Columbia University Law School in 1968, where he taught courses until 2002.

His research resulted in the publication of a number of books, most notably “Tempered Zeal: A Columbia University Professor’s Year on the Streets With the New York City Police.”

“He was really interested in teaching and in sort of mentoring students. He was very much engaged in all aspects of teaching,” said Keniston.

In addition to his sister, Uviller is survived by his wife, the Honorable Rena Katz Uviller; his daughter, Daphne Rachel Uviller; and a granddaughter.

Sheldon White ’51

Professor Sheldon “Shep” White, a developmental psychologist known for his contributions to the field of childhood cognitive development, died of an unexpected heart failure on March 17. He was 76.

White, the Lindsley Professor of Psychology Emeritus, served on the Faculty since 1965. He was the Chair of the Psychology Department for five years and retired from Harvard in 2001.

White was most famous for his research on how children learn.

In the 1960s, he helped develop several government programs for children, including Head Start and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

He also helped create the television program Sesame Street.

“Professor White was the model of a scholar. He attacked important problems with an incisive mind and a sense of history. He was an elegant model for what a university faculty member should be,” said Jerome Kagan, the Starch Research Professor of Psychology.

“White showed how childhood development is a product of schools and society’s design,” said University of Illinois Psychology Professor Philip Rodkin, a former doctoral student of White’s.

“At a time when so much work is oriented toward genetics and neuroscience, he was one of a small number of people who inspired me to see that the context, the situation, and the places that are built for kids can be as powerful as anything in the world,” said Rodkin.

White, a New York native, graduated from Harvard College in 1951, received his M.A. from Boston University in 1952, and earned his PhD at the State University of Iowa in 1957. After completing his doctorate, White taught at the University of Chicago before coming to Harvard.

“When people came in to talk to him...he didn’t just go through the motions of paying attention to them. Academia is not filled with good listeners, and he was one,” said longtime colleague Brendan A. Maher, the Henderson Research Professor Emeritus of the Psychology of Personality.

Rodkin also noted White’s devotion to his students, recalling when White ate dinner with Rodkin and Rodkin’s grandmother.

“I was able to connect a personal part of who I am with my professional future, which is what [White] embodied as my advisor,” said Rodkin.

White is survived by his wife Barbara, his two sons Andrew and Gregory, their respective wives Elizabeth and Amie, and his three grandchildren Olivia, Alexander, and Jonathan.

Robert Wood

Robert C. Wood—academic, policymaker under U.S. presidents John F. Kennedy ’40 and Lyndon B. Johnson, and institutional leader (most notably of the University of Massachusetts system)—died on April 1 at his home in Boston of stomach cancer. He was 81.

Wood earned a masters of public administration, a masters, and doctorate in government and political economy at Harvard, after completing his undergraduate work at Princeton. According to his wife, Margaret, he taught government courses at Harvard from 1954 to 1957 and his students included now-Sen. Edward M. Kennedy D-Mass.

While running for the presidency, John F. Kennedy sought Wood’s advice on urban issues and Wood wrote a campaign speech for him in 1960.

In the 60s, while a member—and later chair—of the Political Science Department at MIT, Wood led the task force in the Johnson administration that created the Department of Housing and Urban Development and served as the department’s first undersecretary. He helped create the Model Cities Program, which directed federal funds towards needy neighborhoods; and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited discrimination in real estate transactions.

A “great part of working with him was that he was so involved with the country that you felt that whatever you said might make a difference,” said Jody Fisher Williams ’56, for whom Wood served as thesis adviser. She later worked under him at MIT and at the Harvard-MIT Joint Center for Urban Studies, where Wood was director from 1969 to 1970.

From 1978 to 1980, Wood served as superintendent of Boston schools during the Boston desegregation case. Marcy M. Murninghan EDD ’83—another thesis advisee of Wood’s and later a staff associate in his administration—said Wood was fired in 1980 when members of the committee that elected him “did not like that he was changing the culture of the system.”

“I learned so much from working with him as he tried to navigate through those shark-infested waters,” Murninghan added.

“My father just believed that every person he came across counted and he taught me, as a new politician, that remembering people’s names is much less important than taking the time to get to know them,” said State Sen. Margaret Wood Hassan D-N.H., one of Wood’s daughters. “[He] taught us all that being smart was never enough, it was being good, too.”

-Compiled by Alexander H. Greeley