 |
| David Gin: 1967-2011 Photo credit: UIUC |
I only interacted with him once, when I was checking out grad schools and visited Illinois. Sitting in his chair, you could tell that he was incredibly energetic and a pretty cool guy. [There was also a wonderful moment when someone called (apparently writing up some sort of grant application or a short bio or something) and he answered (I'm paraphrasing from memory ten years ago) "Yes, Beckman and Sloan. No, not Cope."]
The Chinese have an expression for young people passing away before their time: they call it "white hair following black." (in reference to a funeral procession.) It is among the most terrible of familial tragedies.
My sympathies to his wife, his children and his group.
Does anyone know what happened? It's a little disconcerting for someone so close to my age to 'pass away unexpectedly'. An internet search brought up nothing on it.
ReplyDeleteAll I know is that he woke up in the middle of the night coughing, drank a little water and then went back to sleep. When his wife woke up the next morning he was already gone. Based on this sparse data the plausible explanation seems to be congestive heart failure. But this is just something I heard from a friend who is a postdoc at MSKCC.
ReplyDelete@Anon249pm: Although he died peacefully, this is still a tremendous loss for organic chemistry. In spite of all the ups and downs in my research, I'm learning to appreciate what has otherwise been a fortunate life. At the risk of sounding maudlin, I believe that every discontented scientist can spare a few minutes each day to look on the proverbial bright side.
ReplyDeleteCJ: Did you hear about the freak accident at Yale Chemistry? A senior-level undergrad died in the departmental machine shop. Hopefully this incident is not akin the the Sangji debacle.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/13/michele-dufault-dead-yale_n_848594.html