Passings

Leonard Keith Brown, who built up and headed Pitt’s Asian Studies Program during his nearly 40 years as an anthropology faculty member while undertaking a 50-year study of a single Japanese town, died July 24, 2025, at 92.

Joseph S. Alter, anthropology faculty member and current director of the Asian Studies Center, knew Keith Brown as a senior colleague during Brown’s last decade here, which ended in 2003. “He was very much an old school academic,” Alter said, “dedicated to promoting the study of Japan from an anthropological perspective. Unlike many faculty whose reputation is based on extensive publication, Keith Brown’s impact was very different.

“He was in many ways a person who brought Japan studies into focus and into the forefront of attention through what we now call public-facing scholarship,” Alter said. “He was extremely important in building Asian studies as an institutional part of the University. He built the institution and resources that he played a very important role in securing. He did that through very, very personal and professional relationships that he had with individuals and communities within Japan,” and later through other contacts in the United States. “Those wanting to promote Japan saw in him someone who was equally good as an outsider who had dedicated his life to the study of Japan.

“He built Japanese studies through the influence that he had on a cohort of colleagues,” Alter added. “He saw his work as part of the community of scholars working together to build Japan studies.”

Richard Scaglion, emeritus faculty member in anthropology, began studying under Brown at Pitt as a first-year PhD student in 1969 and later joined the faculty. “The department was interesting, structurally,” Scaglion remembered. “There were a lot of very, very prominent but older faculty” recruited by department head George Peter Murdock beginning in 1960. “And it was a very, very good department within five or six years.”

But Murdock also realized he needed to diversity with fresher faculty. “Keith was in that younger cohort,” Scaglion said, a group who “shared more with the graduate students — they were closer to our age.” This fostered good relationships, and even intramural sports teams among the two groups. Brown, a former high-school football captain, was a very good athlete, Scaglion said.

“A lot of us did community studies,” he explained. But “Keith went to a small agricultural community in rural Japan and he followed that community through thick and thin — right up until the current day,” examining its ethnography and its agricultural and social development. “Keith is almost unique in how longitudinal his study was,” which began in Brown’s PhD thesis. “He always remained a generalist at heart,” writing influential papers in particular on social organization and kinship organization, “groundbreaking and fundamental work that had a lot of influence on later work.”

“When I joined Pitt’s anthropology department in 1986 as an assistant professor, Keith Brown was very helpful as an informal mentor,” said Robert Hayden, another emeritus anthropology faculty member and former director of Russian & East European Studies (REES). “The complications of life for a new assistant professor in an academic department are the stuff of novels that combine elements of satire, intrigue and comedy, though the humor might be lost on the newcomer. Keith was always a wise voice on how to approach issues that might be sensitive to one or more departmental colleagues.

“But it was later in my career that he was even more helpful, and inspiring,” he added. Brown was head of Asian Studies when Hayden arrived to conduct research on India — and “he immediately recruited me into the activities of that center,” Hayden said. Building Pitt’s East Asia programs “to national and international prominence … was a feat which required high levels of skill in interacting with faculty and staff throughout the University and with the highest levels of the administration,” since the provost oversees the University Center for International Studies, which houses those programs.

“UCIS Centers are charged with working with faculty and students throughout the University,” he noted. “In practice this means having to negotiate with faculty whose duties may not be like those of Arts and Sciences faculty, and with the deans of schools that have their own standards, requirements and expectations. I don’t think I was even a week into the job (leading REES) when I called him and sought counsel, which he was always ready to provide. Keith was a grandmaster in understanding how it all could be made to fit together. He got me out from hiding under my new desk in REES and back behind it, and his advice in the first couple of years of my directorship served me well for the 16 years of mine. He was a great colleague and friend.”

Brown was born in Ames, Iowa, and spent time on the campus of Iowa State University, where his father ran the agronomy department’s crop research farm and his mother was eventually an administrative assistant. Brown earned his bachelor’s degree at Iowa State and was then commissioned into the Marine Corps, rising to the rank of captain.

He earned his PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1963, where he began his field work in Japanese studies in Mizusawa, Iwate Prefecture, Japan. His research was funded by the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Mental Health and the Fulbright-Hays program. He joined Pitt in 1966, becoming anthropology department chair, director of Asian Studies and chair of the Japan Council at Pitt. In 1995, Japan’s Imperial Office awarded him The Order of the Sacred Treasure for his “outstanding contributions to furthering Japanese Studies and promoting academic exchange between Japan and the United States".

After retiring from Pitt in 2003 he divided each year between residences in Pittsburgh and Hawaii.

“We continued our relationship right up to the end,” said Richard Scaglion, who has the same split-year living arrangement. “I golfed with him in both places. Keith got pretty good. He is the kind of guy who would be very careful about the fundamentals.”

Recalling his graduate school years, Scaglion said: “Keith was a superb teacher — great, one of the best I've known. He had an enormous (group of) PhD advisees” through the decades following. “Keith cared very much about his undergraduate teaching” as well. “His students are very loyal to him. Some of his students are very, very renowned.”

“He was very loyal to Pitt and very much trying to raise up the name of Pitt, especially in Japan.” Scaglion added. “I think he cared for the University very deeply.”

Recalling their days as colleagues, Joseph Alter said of Brown: “He was extremely collegial, very supportive, really went out of his way to counterbalance what many senior faculty and faculty in general experience as the cutthroat nature of academia. He was very serious about his work and very committed to academic standards. But he didn't put on airs, he was very down to earth.

“As a colleague and as a friend, he was very generous. He spoke from the heart. Everything he did was from the heart and he really believed in everything he did.”

Brown was predeceased by his wife Ruth, sister Elsie Huber and brothers Norman and Wayne. He is survived by children Gordon (Rio), Gary (Betty) and Deborah; grandchildren Matthew, Ryan (Erin), Kayla (Jeff), Noah (Hannah) and Alex, and great-grandchildren Elias Keith, Bo, Jayna, Ariella, Taelyn, and Ezekiel.

A celebration of life will take place from 10 a.m. to noon Oct. 14 at Diamond Head Mortuary. Memorial gifts are suggested to the Keith Brown and Ruth Brown Graduate Student Resource Endowment Fund at Pitt (www.giveto.pitt.edu or University of Pittsburgh, Office of Institutional Advancement, 128 N. Craig St., Pittsburgh, PA 15260).

— Marty Levine

Adam Balawejder, a long-time adjunct instructor in the first-year engineering program of the Swanson School of Engineering, who was also involved in helping to connect students with local industry, died on July 24, 2025, at 40.

Balawejder, who earned both his undergraduate (2007) and master’s degree (2009) in engineering at Pitt, was among the first class of peer mentors hired in 2004 by Jill Harvey, director of first year advising for the Swanson School.

“He was quick to laugh, didn’t take himself too seriously, was exceptionally bright, and was one of those people who made friends wherever he went,” Harvey recalled. “To meet Adam was to make a friend. He had haunts all over Pittsburgh and loved discovering new coffee shops, bars and restaurants; his dad told me he found just about every Pittsburgh bartender and barista’s name and number in his phone. Adam was a connector and a collector of people.”

When Balawejder became an adjunct instructor, 10 years ago, she recalled, “before he taught class, he’d often stop by or send me a text to ask, ‘Are you going to be in your office around 4:30, JGH?’ (Harvey’s initials). And he’d come strolling in with his coffee (always with the coffee) a few minutes before class so we could chat about things.

“Adam was fizzy; he lived with joy, compassion for others and an enthusiasm for life. It seems so trite to say that about someone who has passed, but it’s truly how he was. He loved to teach, and students adored him. He was willing to take time to patiently help a student who was struggling academically, and he was quick to show empathy and careful to provide supportive referrals when they were struggling personally. He truly cared about people, and that kind of genuine concern is something students could easily see in Adam.”

Brandon Grainger, Swanson faculty member and director of its AMPED (Advanced Magnetics for Power and Energy Development) program, said Balawejder had just begun working with AMPED, which connects current undergraduates to industry — in this case, Curtiss-Wright-EMD, where Balawejder worked as an electrical engineer for nearly 20 years. “We were only starting to build that up.”

Grainger also recalled his colleague as being especially effective at teaching the school’s first-year course: “It takes special and gifted people to be in charge of that. Adam had that spunky personality about him. He made you comfortable. It is a warm spirit.”

“I absolutely loved working with Adam,” said Irene Mena, Swanson faculty member and director of the First-Year Engineering Program. “He loved to teach, cared about his students, and always brought joy to our meetings with his sense of humor. To say that he will be missed is an understatement.”

Born in Springdale, Pa., on Oct. 24, 1984, he is survived by his father, Bruce Balawejder; his sister, Emily Balawejder; and his partner, Laura Palmer.

— Marty Levine

Frederick W. Clothey, an early and influential faculty member in the Department of Religious Studies in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences from the mid-1970s until 2006, died May 18, 2025.

“His commitment to advancing the academic study of religious experiences through advanced methodological approaches,” says his long-time departmental colleague Associate Professor Emeritus Alex Orbach, “guided not only his own research and scholarship — notably, his founding and directing, for more than a decade, of the Journal of Ritual Studies — it decidedly shaped the identity and orientation of the Department of Religious Studies.”

Clothey was only the third faculty member in the newly formed department. His research focus was on India, but he was “more than a regionalist,” Orbach recalls. “His research and teaching identified him as a historian of religion devoted to identifying and documenting how religious ideas, practices and perspectives shaped the fabric of individual lives and societal institutions.”

He approached the study of religious rituals and other phenomena “as they emerged from human encounters with the mysterious and the supernatural and manifested themselves across geographical rather than denominational boundaries.” And, unlike scholars before him, Clothey avoided labels, Orbach notes, “such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism … because he believed that doing so imposed artificial boundaries on the behaviors” he was examining.

“His approach, as seen in his courses, ‘Perspectives on Religion, Myth, Symbol and Ritual’ and ‘Death and Dying,’ proved to be stimulating to the large number of undergraduates students who enrolled in his courses and identified him as a mentor who could guide them to a clearer and more sophisticated understanding of the phenomenon of religion in human decision making at the personal as well as the political level.”

Orbach says of Clothey’s character: “His gentleness and his welcoming persona together with the range and the depth of his knowledge made him an attractive mentor to graduate students interested in the critical study of religion as a force in the human condition. As a consequence, he served on more graduate theses and dissertation committees than did any other member of the department in the quarter century from his arrival at the University through the end of the 20th century.

“As chair of the department, Clothey continually stressed the importance of interdisciplinary studies and encouraged all colleagues to participate actively in the work of allied departments (history, anthropology, philosophy) and, if appropriate, the relevant area studies programs in the University Center for International Studies.”

Another of Clothey’s close colleagues — a fellow South Asianist — is Joseph S. Alter, now director of the Asian Studies Center and professor of anthropology. Alter met Clothey in the 1990s as a faculty member, joined him on the Indo-Pacific Council of the Asian Studies Center and succeeded him as Pitt’s representative to the American Institute for Indian Studies.

He credits Clothey with accomplishing “some of the groundbreaking work in popular religion in South India,” at the same time that Alter was working in North India. Clothey’s work on popular religion influenced his work here in Pittsburgh too, Alter adds: his outreach to the local Indian community allowed him to study the ways in which the Monroeville temple “was physically and spiritually connected” to a counterpart in India, and how “the diaspora of Indians retains its religious roots in India. He was also a really good example of a scholar whose work on popular religion made him aware of issues of social inequality.”

As a colleague, Alter remembers, Clothey “was very, very generous and encouraging,” helping Alter get his footing as a junior faculty member. “He was very instrumental in promoting Indian studies within Asian Studies here at the University” through the Indo-Pacific Council, Alter adds.

He recalls Clothey in one faculty meeting at the Asian Studies Center: “I was struck by his complete understanding of the complicated dynamics of how one part of Asia took precedent over other parts of Asia” — particularly China and East Asia, in those years. “I was struck by Fred's ability both to accept that but also constantly push back against the marginalization of India. He did it with such a good sense of humor that he was comfortable with the expectation that it was unlikely to bring about any positive result ... but that it was a battle worth fighting all the way through.”

Born Feb. 29, 1936, Clothey was a graduate of Kodaikanal International School in India (1954), earning his B.A. and B.Th. at Aurora University, a B.Div at Naperville Seminary, and an M.A. and PhD at the University of Chicago. His early career included a stint at Boston University, and he retired from Pitt as professor emeritus. He was honored with the Distinguished Asianist award from the Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies, and four Fulbright scholarships. He authored many books and scholarly articles and produced seven documentaries.

He is survived by Ann, his wife of 63 years; children Phillip, Rebecca, Frederick M., Sharmali and Fathima; daughters-in-law Gaby and Wendy; grandchildren Ari, Elijah, Anika and Kyle, and many nieces and nephews.

A memorial gift is suggested: a tree planted in his memory through the Arbor Day Foundation.

— Marty Levine

Susanne Gollin, professor emerita of human genetics in the School of Public Health — a pioneering geneticist who discovered and patented insights on cancer’s resistance to treatment, showing that certain genetic defects could be used both prognostically and as a guide to alternative therapeutics — died April 6, 2025 at 71.

Gollin’s first doctorial student mentee in the early 1990s — Christa Lese Martin, now chief scientific officer with the Geisinger Health System – remembered Gollin’s broad and lasting influence: “She treated her mentees like family. She called us her kids, basically, and she had hundreds of students that she mentored.

“She loved science and she loved teaching about science,” Martin recalled. “She really took care of all the students that she had,” from master’s and PhD candidates to residents and clinical fellows, as well as undergraduates and even high-school students she involved in her laboratory. “She was always willing to give people time to grow and love science, and to help people in their careers.”

Martin particularly noted Gollin’s course on writing science: “She loved that course and loved helping people think about how to clearly and concisely write about the work that they do.” But Gollin’s central work involved human cytogenetics, the study of chromosomes: “She was a wonderful teacher, patient, clear and concise and just wanted her students to excel.

“And she was not shy about using her network to help link her students to anything or anybody they needed to do their research” — or to start their careers. “And she did that for all of her students. She always went above and beyond ... to make sure we all had every opportunity that was afforded to us.”

During her memorial service, Martin noted, “one of the rabbis described her as ‘a generous genius,’ and I thought that was the perfect description of her.”

“She was a stellar researcher,” Martin added, but also a clinical laboratory director, doing work that directly impacted patient care. “She always made time for people outside of her work and her family. So she gave us a great example of how to live a well-balanced life.”

Gollin’s colleague Jeremy Berg, professor of computational and systems biology, shared his remarks from that memorial service. Meeting Gollin, he said, he “was taken by this passionate and, dare I say, hyper-enthusiastic member of the Department of Human Genetics.”

Working in her field, he said, “requires an adventurous spirit. You start off examining cells from patients with a certain type of cancer or, in some cases, other diseases, and look to see if their chromosomal composition or structure is unusual. When you find something, you map the particular changes that are responsible and often deduce the involvement of something previously unanticipated. You now have a whole lot of new biology to learn. Susanne embraced such journeys with gusto and made many important discoveries, particularly involving head and neck cancer as well as a number of rare diseases.”

For head-and-neck cancers, he said, the five-year survival rate has improved from 50 percent to 60 percent overall, “due, in part, to therapeutic approaches developed based on the work of Susanne and other researchers.” Those with such cancers now “are given more years to go to high-school graduations and to grandchildren’s birthday parties.”

He recalled Gollin’s additional work “on other aspects of public health as a long-time member of the Allegheny County Board of Health,” such as cancer prevention through smoking cessation, anti-cancer vaccines and cancer screenings.

“What I will remember most about Susanne,” Berg said, “is what a joyful experience it was to talk with Susanne about science. She would launch into an alphabet soup discussion about different molecules and pathways (‘ATR this and P53 that’) as if they were old friends and, of course, you knew them too. I sometimes had trouble keeping up and I am a biochemist. But, that was beside the point. You could not walk away without appreciating how deeply she cared and how much she took pride in making a difference in the world.”

Susanne M. Gollin was raised in Lincolnwood, Illinois. She graduated from Niles West High School (1971) and Northwestern University with a bachelor of arts degree (1974), a master of science degree (1975) and a PhD (1980), all in in biological sciences.

She completed her postdoctoral training at the University of Rochester and Baylor College of Medicine and then became board certified as a clinical cytogeneticist by the American Board of Medical Genetics. An early academic appointment included membership on the faculty of the medical school of the University of Arkansas.

Gollin was a founding fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics & Genomics, the International Academy of Oral Oncology and the Indian Association of Molecular Pathologists. She was also a founding professor of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (now the Hillman Cancer Center). 

She is survived by her husband, Lazar Palnick; son Jacob; and two sisters, Roberta Lottinger and Joan Gollin Gaines.

Memorial contributions are suggested to the School of Public Health (www.giveto.pitt.edu/Gollin-memorial or the Gollin/Gaines Family Fund, University of Pittsburgh Philanthropic & Alumni Engagement, PO Box 640093, Pittsburgh, PA 15260 Attention: School of Public Health).

— Marty Levine

John M. Levine, a 50-year psychology professor and the department’s chair for 11 years — who helped to build its social psychology Ph.D. program and did award-winning work at the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) — died Feb. 26, 2025 at 82.

Retired LRDC senior scientist and former School of Education Dean Alan Lesgold, a long-time colleague of Levine’s, recalled that “he was one of a small group of colleagues who were both role models and sources of advice. Research, at its best, is a selfless activity that benefits greatly from wise people presenting their ideas willingly for critical review and debate. John was a model of the true scientist-scholar, daring to try new things and willing to face corrective ideas from others. I hope I absorbed at least some of that disposition.”

In 2011, Levine’s research with Pitt colleague Richard Moreland received the Joseph E. McGrath Lifetime Achievement Award in the Study of Groups from the Interdisciplinary Network for Group Research, which recognized that the pair had “pushed, bridged and redefined many of the boundaries in our field … made theoretical advances in virtually every area of small group research … consistently moved the field forward and have been at the forefront of each new advance.”

“Even in a center devoted to applied science in the service of education (LRDC),  John stood out as being concerned always with what his work meant to the school world, even as he was the most rigorous of researchers,” Lesgold said. “His work was important from the outset, since classes are small groups working on the shared task of learning. His work became even more important as tasks in our world, both in school and in everyday life, became more complex and often demanding of teamwork. I very much hope that people studying collective intelligence and teams with both human and AI participants will take the time to research John’s work and what it has stimulated others to discover.”

Levine’s collaborator on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University, Linda Argote, noted that “John Levine’s research and intellectual leadership have had a major impact — both locally and on a global scale. As a local example, John co-founded the Groups and Organizations seminar, which brought together researchers from different departments across the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University. John’s global leadership included serving as editor of the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, guest editor of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and as president of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. All of us who had the pleasure of knowing him valued his friendship and collegiality. We are fortunate that John spent his career with us.”

Another close colleague, Charles Perfetti (distinguished university professor of psychology and senior scientist at LRDC), remembered Levine as “a brilliant researcher and academic leader who made a long-lasting impact in helping to build a social psychology Ph.D. program at the University of Pittsburgh.

“Over time, the social psychology program suffered from faculty retirements and other problems. I think it is fair to say that the program was on the brink of disappearing as a stand-alone Ph.D. program. But John was determined to save the program. He resumed its leadership, re-invigorating the program and bringing in new faculty so that it remains today as a solid Ph.D. program within the Department of Psychology.”

Perfetti added: “John is internationally renowned for his research on the processes that shape social interactions within small groups. For example, what processes lead a person to conform with group norms? What are the psychological consequences of deviance from these norms? How do members who are in the minority manage to influence members of the group majority? John’s research was basic social science, but he was keenly interested in its applications to real-life groups, so he later refocused his research on the study of the social processes in work groups.

“John mentored countless students and had many collaborations around the world. He was awarded an honorary doctorate, from the University of Lausanne. He showed a deep dedication to traditional academic values, something I could see in the many faculty discussions where principled positions on competing values were tested.”

Karina Schumann and Mandy Forest, associate professors of psychology, wrote a remembrance together, after having known him during the last decade of his career at Pitt:

“John was a devoted mentor to us during our years as junior faculty, as well as a valued collaborator and dear friend. John was always there when we needed him. He would stop by regularly to check in and was always the first person to offer to provide feedback on a new research idea or grant. On one occasion, Mandy sought John’s advice on a grant proposal. John listened eagerly, asked thoughtful questions, and offered both encouragement and constructive suggestions for strengthening the proposal. Mandy left that meeting feeling energized and immensely grateful, struck by John’s ability to provide feedback that was simultaneously validating and insightful.

“Graduate students also appreciated John’s clear and insightful feedback on their work, specifically requesting him to serve on their milestone committees because they knew his perspective would enhance their projects and training.

“We have also been fortunate to have collaborated with John on different projects. John brought wisdom and expertise as well as energy and excitement to research conversations. We loved the way his eyes would light up when he hit on a great new study idea, and how the energy in the room noticeably increased when John discussed a new finding.

“John was a social psychologist through and through — someone who genuinely loved the field and who had a deep intrinsic interest in the topics he studied (as evidenced by his continued involvement in research even after his retirement). One quality we greatly admired was John’s knack for generating interesting and important ideas and his keen ability to turn them into tractable research questions.

“On one occasion, Karina and a grad student began developing a research idea on political intragroup processes. They presented it to John, and in a single meeting, they generated half a dozen potential lines of research stemming from this concept. It was one of the most generative and inspiring meetings Karina had ever participated in. She came away from that meeting in awe of John’s ability to connect new ideas to longstanding theories in the field, enhancing the depth and richness of the research project through his deep knowledge and creativity. Despite his vast knowledge, John brought humility to every collaboration, consistently embracing others’ suggestions and approaches with openness and respect.

“We will always be grateful for the kindness, generosity and wisdom he brought to our lives.”

John M. Levine was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on Nov. 28, 1942. He graduated from Northwestern University with a bachelor of arts degree in psychology in 1965 and from the University of Wisconsin with master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology in 1969. 

He began his academic career at Pitt that year, and joined the LRDC in 1977. His stint as chair of psychology spanned 1985-1996. He was also director of graduate studies in his department (1998-1999).

He is survived by his sons, Jeff (Carmina) and Andy (Liz); his sister, Carolyn; and his grandchildren, Bennett and Isabel.

Memorial gifts are suggested to the Family Hospice Foundation, 700 Bower Hill Road, Suite 1405, Pittsburgh, PA 15243.

— Marty Levine

Frederick S. Pettit, Harry S. Tack Chair professor (1989-2006) and professor emeritus in the former Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering in the Swanson School of Engineering, died Feb. 25, 2025 at 94.

“He is a stellar figure in the field of high temperature corrosion,” said Brian Gleeson, current Harry S. Tack Chair professor and chair of what is now the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, whom Fred Pettit recruited to Pitt. “He made major contributions.”

Pettit had already established himself as a prominent researcher at Pratt & Whitney when he joined Pitt. “In the literature, his work is still often referenced,” Gleeson noted.

A remembrance from his department notes that “Pettit’s research focused on degradation of materials at elevated temperatures by oxidation, hot corrosion and erosion, and the use of coatings for protection. His work emphasized high-performance, high-temperature materials as superalloys, intermetallics, composites and coatings for use in advanced combustion systems. In 2004, the Tenth International Symposium on Superalloys, hosted by The Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society, dedicated the proceedings to his research.”

Pettit also co-authored a textbook with Emeritus Prof. Gerald Meier, “Introduction to the High-Temperature Oxidation of Metals.”

Gleeson recalled Pettit as “a very thorough, dedicated teacher” as well as an advisor to many Ph.D. students. He taught until he was 84. “If that’s not dedication, I don’t know what it is,” Gleeson added. “He was just a gentleman and a scholar. I never heard him say a bad word about anyone. He was a genuine person and a thoughtful mentor.”

One of those whom he mentored was James M. Rakowski, as a Pitt Ph.D. student who is now technical director of ATI’s specialty rolled products. Pettit served on Rakowski’s thesis committee.

“He was maybe a little more professionally oriented” because he started his career outside academia, Rakowski said. “He brought a lot of aerospace super alloy metallurgy experience to Pitt, so we did a lot of things in collaboration with the industry of the gas turbine world. He brought a little bit of practicality to the work we did. We did work in real materials, things that were in service or that were nearing in service” — commercial alloys as opposed to next-generation materials.”

“He was always a really good, thorough professor. He was a serious guy but he had a sense of humor. He would put on a serious face but you could tell he was enjoying himself. He made sure you understood how things worked and that you understood the material thoroughly.” As an advisor, he said, Pettit “was teaching us to become grown-up individuals. Without being hard on us, he taught us how to show up on time, how to be professional, how to be good future academics and/or engineers.

“He was gentle but insistent that we learned how to manage our day-to-day. He was interested in our future development and I found that very helpful moving forward and in everything I've done.”

Pettit even found contract work for students who needed help with income and talked one student out of quitting after the student had lost confidence in his own abilities, Rakowski remembered.

One annual engineering conference Pettit attended with his students, including Rakowski, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire featured a mile-long uphill race for conference participants. Students in their 20s kidded Pettit about beating their professor, who was decades older, Rakowski said. The students would start off running, while Pettit followed at a jog, but “by the end he had passed every single one of them.”

Overall, he concluded: “You knew he had expectations and you did not want to let him down. You knew you wanted to live up to his level. He made all of us better.”

Frederick S. Pettit, was born on March 10, 1930, in Nuangola, Pa. He received his bachelor of science degree from Yale, then started his career at Westinghouse before serving as a Marine Corps officer. Returning to earn his Ph.D. from Yale, he took a postdoctoral position at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, then began work as a research scientist for Pratt & Whitney.

After retirement from Pitt, he taught graduate classes in thermodynamics at the University of Connecticut.

He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Lou-Jean; sons Nicholas, Theodore (Carrie) and John (Kathy); grandchildren Shenandoah Avalos (Alex), Savannah, Nathaniel, Charles, Matthew, Grace, Daniel and Zachary; great-granddaughter Lyra Avalos; and sister-in-law Adele Corso.

Memorial gifts are suggested to the Charles Andrew Pettit Scholarship Fund, University of Pittsburgh, PO Box 640093, Pittsburgh, PA 15264.

— Marty Levine

Kevin Sontheimer, a 27-year faculty member who, as chairman, transformed the Department of Economics in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences and was instrumental in the founding of two pioneering international economics and management programs, died Feb. 3, 2025, at 86.

His tenure as economics chair lasted through most of the 1980s. One of his early hires was future Nobel Prize-winning economist Alvin Roth as the first Mellon professorship at Pitt. “Kevin played a giant role in my decision to join the department in 1982,” Roth recalled. “He convinced me that, although the department had previously been somewhat under-resourced, it was a healthy department where it would be fun to work, with colleagues who would work together.

“And he was certainly right about that,” Roth continued. “During the time he was chair, we received permission to recruit fairly heavily, and successfully grew the department into a leading research department as well as a fine teaching department. I did some of the best work of my career at Pitt (1982-1998).

“One of the many things that Kevin did as chair was obtain a grant that allowed us to become one of the early economics departments to have an experimental laboratory. He built the department in other ways as well.”

That included securing a Mellon Foundation grant to found, together with Jan Svenjar and Josef Zieleniec, the Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education (CERGE) at Charles University in Prague in 1991 (which became CERGE-EI in 1992, merging with the Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences). He was also an instrumental part of the team from his department and the Katz Graduate School of Business to receive USAID grants to work with Academia Istropolitana Nova and other institutions in Bratislava, Slovakia, to set up their economics program as well as the program at Comenius University in Bratislava.

“Kevin was instrumental … a very, very important player in both of these efforts,” said Andrew R. Blair, professor emeritus of business administration and of economics at Katz and the College of Business Administration, and a close colleague of Sontheimer. “Kevin’s role in the Czech Republic and, most especially, the Slovakia relationships was absolutely vital to the success of these Pitt ventures in Central Europe, which were aimed at incorporating free markets in these countries after decades of operating under Soviet domination,” he added.

While Sontheimer was economics chair, Blair was director of Katz’s International Business Center, and their cooperation was crucial in such efforts. Blair explained that Sontheimer in particular was “the driving force” behind the latter international program, “with Kevin serving both as co-director of the USAID grant implementation and also as resident director in Bratislava of the economics portion of the Comenius relationship. The idea was to train people who were already faculty members at these institutions, to teach with them over there, and to bring them over here” to Pittsburgh: “Without the grant we couldn’t possibly have done that.

“It was a pleasure to work with Kevin.”

Kevin Charles Sontheimer was born on March 6, 1938, in Pittsburgh, earning his bachelor's degree in physics at Pitt in 1960, a master's degree in economics from Penn State University in 1963 and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1969.

He began his academic career on the faculties of Virginia Tech and SUNY–Buffalo, then joined Pitt in 1978 until his retirement as professor emeritus in 2006. He was economics department chair for eight years.

His own research focus was on microeconomic theory, which led to publications in Econometrica, Journal of Economic Theory and Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, as well as other leading academic publications in his field. He was also a visiting professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and at the University of Mannheim in Germany.

He is survived by his wife of nearly 65 years, Carol Sontheimer; daughter Leigh Ellen Sontheimer; son Erik Sontheimer and daughter-in-law Catherine Brekus; son Steven Sontheimer and daughter-in-law Morgan Triplett; grandchildren Claire, Rachel and Tanner Sontheimer; brother Adrian (“Dink”) Sontheimer and sister Sue Wilmot.

A gathering to celebrate Sontheimer’s life will be held at a later date. Memorial gifts are suggested to the Alzheimer's Association or the Department of Economics at Pitt.

— Marty Levine

Keith A. McDuffie, 17-year chair of the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures and past president of the University Senate, died Jan. 9, 2025, at 92.

There will be a Celebration of Life from 6 to 9:30 p.m. March 13 at the Kimpton Hotel Monaco Pittsburgh.

“Keith became the president of the University Senate and I became interim chancellor of the University at the same time, the summer of 1995,” recalled Chancellor Emeritus Mark Nordenberg. “Relations between the leadership of the Senate and University leaders may have been at an all-time low. There was a lack of trust, and interactions often were antagonistic.

“Keith and I did not know each other, so we arranged to meet,” Nordenberg continued. “Each of us left that conversation convinced that the other was driven principally by a desire to make Pitt an even better place. Recognizing that we would not always agree on the best ways to advance that goal, we pledged that our interactions always would be civil and respectful and that neither of us would publicly surprise the other.

“Keith always met those standards, and over time, we became both partners and friends, even though we did not agree on everything. The tone that Keith helped set became a model for his successors, which clearly benefited the University. His love of Pitt was evident in the way that he handled his responsibilities, and his positive human qualities always were on display in his dealings with others.”

John Baker, emeritus associate professor in the School of Dental Medicine, followed McDuffie as Senate president a decade later. “Keith was a calming influence,” he said of McDuffie’s years at the Senate’s helm, “who tried to mediate the differences of opinion. One of his lasting Senate legacies was the hiring of a new director for the Senate’s office, which resulted in improved office efficiency.”

When he saw McDuffie several years ago at a luncheon hosted by Mark Nordenberg for past presidents of the University Senate, “he was still taking piano lessons, a hobby he'd begun in retirement and which, although challenging, gave him great pleasure.”

Katharine Baker, a former Pitt student and John Baker’s wife, recalls how encouraging McDuffie was to her own academic studies and career as a Portuguese translator, which was inspired by her Portuguese heritage: “Keith encouraged me, saying the language wasn't as hard to learn as I feared, and that he'd taken a year of it in grad school.

“He also told me many times that choosing to hire Dr. Bobby J. Chamberlain to teach Portuguese was one of the best decisions he made during his years as chair of the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature,” she added. Chamberlain, who mentored her translating career, died in 2022..

Keith Arthur McDuffie was born Feb. 12, 1932, in Spokane, Wash. Graduating from Missoula County High School in 1949, he earned his undergraduate degree in English from Gonzaga University in Spokane in 1954.

After his time in the Army, McDuffie taught English and Spanish at a Washington high school and at the Middlebury College Foreign Language Schools in Vermont. He spent the 1958-59 academic year in Spain at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, part of his pursuit of a master’s degree in Spanish, which he earned from Middlebury in 1960.

After several years teaching Spanish at a pair of New England academies, he began his university teaching career at Pitt–Johnstown in 1964, earning his Ph.D. in Spanish from the University in 1969. He taught at the University of Montana (1967-1974), chairing its foreign languages department (1969-1974), before rejoining Pitt as the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures chair. He also directed the department’s graduate program in Hispanic Languages and Literatures (1992-1994) before retiring as professor emeritus in 1996.

McDuffie had written his doctoral dissertation on Peruvian poet César Vallejo, whose work was just becoming known in the English-speaking world. At Pitt, he continued to write about Vallejo’s work and to review its translations, although his research also began to include more modern works: the telenovelas of Mexico and Brazil, Manuel Puig’s novels and contemporary Latin American short stories. His teaching focused particularly on graduate courses.

While at Pitt, McDuffie edited Revista Iberoamericana for the Instituto Internacional de Literatura Iberoamericana (1991-1996). He was instrumental in bringing the Semester at Sea program to Pitt, serving as Pitt’s first academic dean on the spring 1981 voyage and as Pitt’s first administrative dean on the spring 1989 voyage. He also chaired Pitt’s faculty oversight committee from 1981 to 1991.

He was an active member of the University Senate beginning in 1977, into his retirement, and was elected vice president (1985-86) and president (1995-96) while serving on many Senate committees.

He is survived by children Anne McDuffie (Tim Wood) and Andrew McDuffie, their mother Helen McDuffie, and grandchildren Sarah Wood, Tyler Wood and Olive McDuffie, her mother Courtney Anderson, and many cousins, nieces and nephews. His second wife, Pamela Bacarisse, preceded him in death.

Memorial gifts are suggested to Doctors Without Borders.

— Marty Levine

Morteza Torkamani, an associate professor of civil engineering in the Swanson School of Engineering for 37 years (1980-2017), has died at 83.

Torkamani’s colleague in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, John Brigham — who joined the school in 2008 — remembered Torkamani as a senior faculty member with whom he worked on graduate students’ committees and on faculty committees.

“Even then, he was very much a passionate professor,” Brigham said. “He was very committed, always in the office, working hard.”

Torkamani’s academic focus was on the equations that governed the stability of structures and how buildings respond to earthquakes and winds — particularly on how they might fail. He taught a broad range of courses, particularly for structural engineering and mechanics, from early classes on dynamics of solids up to master’s-level courses on advanced structural analysis.

He was responsible for delivering a large part of the structural analysis coursework that remains today, and thus, “a lot of the class structure there and the curriculum structure there is owed to his guidance,” Brigham said.

“He was a very rigorous teacher” known for his tough, demanding classes, he added. Students, referring to him by nickname, had a saying: “ ‘If you could make it through a Tork class, you can make it through anything.’ I think that was said with appreciation.

“He was frankly very quiet, a reserved person, but he was always willing to contribute,” Brigham said. In person he was “very warm, always willing to help out with teaching committees. He was always there and willing to lace up his boots and get to work.”

Morteza Torkamani earned medals in wrestling during his undergraduate years at Tehran University in Iran, and was instrumental in helping to improve conditions in Iran by building roads as a civil engineer. He earned a Ph.D. in his field from UCLA. “His contributions to the field, including a wealth of scholarly literature, remain highly regarded by his graduate students and colleagues,” noted a departmental remembrance.

He is survived by two sisters and a brother.

— Marty Levine