MIT Class of 1963, Class Notes for the March/April 2009 issue of Technology Review

I’m writing in December, six months after the reunion so I’ll offer a mea culpa. If I have details wrong, incorrectly identified a spouse or significant other, failed to write down the last name or relationship of a guest, I’m going to blame it on the tiny handwriting I used for my notes and a bad memory. If the error was egregious, send me the correct information. Better yet E-mail me some current notes.

At Tech Night at the Pops I sat next to Christina and *Stephen Miller. Stephen, a course 6 grad, is a thoracic radiologist by vocation and an amateur astronomer by avocation. He has homes in Lexington, MA and Martha’s Vineyard and is the head of radiology at the Martha’s Vineyard hospital. Stephen’s son, Scott, received an MIT MS in Ocean Engineering (course 13 for those of you who can’t recall the number.)

Barbara and I had lunch in the Stratton Center on Friday with Dee and *Tony Geisler, Violette and *Ira Blumenthal, Faye and *Dan Ross, Toby and *Bruce Eisenstein, *Frank Model, Sandy Auerback and *Victor Scheinman, Ellie and *John Graham. These days there are many choices for lunch on the MIT campus; the students don’t know how good they have it. Dan is still practicing law in Philadelphia. He was wearing a 1934 MIT ring that belonged to his father. After lunch visited the Institute of Contemporary Art, an unusual building cantilevered out over Boston Harbor. We had an interesting guided tour of some of the contemporary art on display. Interesting is the word you use when you can’t say something nice, but you don’t want to say something bad.

After the reunion Tony and Dee went to Peru for the postscript on an adventure that started in 2004. In that year while touring Peru they met an earnest 16 year-old boy named Jhon Farfan Auccapuma selling postcards on the main square in Cusco and a friendship developed. They advised him to get off the street and get an education, easier said than done when you are a dirt-poor Inca Indian. The Geislers began to support Jhon and communicate with him regularly via the Internet. He has since graduated from high school and is now enrolled at the public university in Cusco. This past June 22 Jhon turned 20 on the exact day that the Geislers celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. Tony wrote me that the karma of 40 and 20 on the same day was too good to pass up and after the reunion the Geislers headed to Cusco to celebrate the double milestone with the young man they are mentoring.

The Saturday night reunion event was held in the MIT Museum. *Mark Epstein talked in the downstairs innovation gallery that bears his. Mark views the gallery as a vehicle for education outreach and a unique way of telling MIT’s story. The interactive exhibitions range from underwater exploration to cancer research to a stackable car designed for energy efficient urban driving. There is a collection of holograms, a strobe photography exhibit and kinetic sculptures. During the cocktail hour in the gallery I talked with *Lou Taff. Lou’s two sons are both educators. One is a high school math teacher in St. Louis; the other received a Ph.D. in geography at UNC-Chapel Hill and is now an assistant professor at Louisville. Two years ago Lou and his wife adopted a baby girl from China. *BohKee Yap and his wife Roseanne told me they live in Lexington, MA. BohKee is retired from a career in electro-optics and laser and IR systems. He and Roseanne are enjoying skiing and hiking. BohKee was an outstanding badminton player at MIT and he still plays serious badminton. Roseanne and BohKee have a son and a daughter, and 3 grandchildren ages 9, 6, and 4. Like their parents, their daughter is a Wellesley grad, their son an MIT grad.

Later in the hour MIT President Susan Hockfield and her husband, Thomas Byrne, joined us. She worked the room expertly - an essential skill for a university president. When she got to the group I was in I told her my idea for our 50th reunion. I suggested to President Hockfield that during the graduation procession of 2013 our class should be led by a bagpiper. If you’ve ever heard bagpipe music you understand why the Scots were such fearsome warriors; bagpipe music gets the blood flowing. *Victor Scheinman overheard this and suggested that a robotic bagpiper was more in tune with our technological heritage. He said he could build the robot. Susan Hockfield called the idea “interesting” (that word again) - we’ll see if the notion a bagpiping robot develops any traction for our 50th. Victor has good credentials for building that robot. Our Saturday dinner was in the gallery where MIT related robots are on display. One of them was the pioneering programmable robot arm that Victor designed. Vic told us the history of the robot and how it led to the company he founded, Vicarm. Vicarm was later sold to Unimation and Victor’s robots were widely used in manufacturing.

I’ll save a few more tidbits of reunion news for the next column, but here’s a non-reunion note. *Armen Gabrielian said that he hadn’t written for a while so he sent me this info. Armen missed the reunion again this year, but he says he’ll attend the 50th if he’s still around! He left MIT in 1969 with a PhD in course 6 and spent most of his career doing research in computer science and software. This included university research in Ontario, Canada, and Southern California, having his own research and consulting company for eight years, and a stint in commercial software. Several years ago he decided to retire from corporate life. These days he dabbles a little in art but his most serious interest is international folk dancing, which he started during his last year at MIT. He is active in folk dance circles in the Bay Area and occasionally teaches folk dancing. During the last three years he attended dance workshops in Armenia and the Greek islands. He said it’s great to dance for five hours every day and then dance more until 3 AM in a Greek taverna with breaks for ouzo and Greek beer or wine! Since 1987, Armen and his wife have lived in San Jose in Silicon Valley. Their two daughters are in their mid-20s and are out of the house. Armen’s older daughter received her MD last year. She is a second-year resident in psychiatry, but, he wrote, she refuses to accept Armen as a patient. His younger daughter is an aspiring concert pianist who has won some international competitions. One of the things Armen misses most from our MIT days is the experience of being on the wrestling team. He gets occasional E-mails from the MIT wrestling coach about the progress of the current team. He is still within 12 pounds of his wrestling weight at MIT and has the illusion that he could take part in a wrestling match as in days of old. Armen thinks it’s great that our class crew team has kept up their tradition.