People We’ve Lost in 2022

They challenged conventions, made the Graduate Center a more welcoming place, and fostered first-rate scholarship. We remember the faculty, administrators, and friends of the Graduate Center whom we’ve lost this year.

Here are their stories, arranged by the time of their death, from the most recent (September) to the earliest (March):

Considered one of the most important philosophers of the last 50 years, Saul Kripke, taught at the Graduate Center from 2002 until his death in September. Since 2007, the Saul Kripke Center has been devoted to archiving and publishing his voluminous work. The center’s director, alumna Romina Padró (Ph.D. ’15, Philosophy), described the joy he found in doing philosophy, “letting himself be genuinely surprised by philosophical problems.”

James P. Smith, a former assistant professor of Economics who a had a long and distinguished career at the nonprofit RAND corporation, was “a truly great labor and health economist” and an influential teacher and mentor to Graduate Center students, said Professor Emeritus Michael Grossman (Economics, Business).
 

Brianne Waychoff, an associate professor of communication and the co-coordinator of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, is remembered by her colleagues at the Center for the Study of Women and Society for working “so hard and with so much love for the sake of feminist scholarship, even when she was unwell and receiving care at Sloan Kettering.”
 

Lourdes Lopez, a business data and reporting analyst in the Office of Human Resources from 2019 until her death in April, was a consummate professional and team player who worked tirelessly to support the Graduate Center’s safe return to campus.
 

In 2017, the Graduate Center named its East Harlem apartment complex for John H. Streicker, a longtime member of the Graduate Center Foundation Board and a generous contributor to the school who championed affordable housing for students and faculty and was instrumental in creating the residence.

The In Memoriam section of the Graduate Center website pays tribute to Graduate Center faculty, administrators, students, and friends who are no longer with us.

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