Passings

Kathy (Banze) DiGiacomo, who spent most of her 25-year Pitt career as the administrator for the chairman’s research division labs in the Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, died Sept. 3, 2024, at 66.

DiGiacomo “was basically the heart of the lab and she was what we called colloquially the lab mom,” said Melanie Scott, one of the primary investigators in those laboratories and now vice chair for Research in that department. To those having a tough day at work, DiGiacomo would “offer a kind word,” Scott recalled. “She was such a lovely person.”

DiGiacomo also took on the task of running the department’s T32 training grants, an NIH-funded program for residents to gain experience in research across several years. That included a lot of trainees from foreign countries, for whom DiGiacomo became their go-to departmental contact. “She was a real integral part of the lab and she touched so many people who came through the lab,” Scott said.

DiGiacomo was the first person Scott met when arriving at Pitt to apply for her own postdoctoral position, becoming her campus guide, from meals to meetings. “She was a superstar at dealing with all of that,” Scott recalled. “She became a great friend.”

DiGiacomo introduced Scott, who is from the UK, to Pittsburgh sports, from high school to the pros. She took Scott everywhere from Steelers’ training camp in Latrobe, where she watched then-quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in action, to a Central Catholic high school football game, where the band and the overall atmosphere were a new phenomenon, Scott said. She even took Scott to Halloween parties and other family events.

Debra Williams — lab manager of the division, with DiGiacomo on her team — remembers their working relationship as “quite the journey, in which the Department of Surgery research labs flourished and helped to launch many successful clinical and academic careers.” DiGiacomo, says Williams, was an integral part of a team “that made it possible for hundreds of researchers of all levels and nationalities to conduct their early research training. Kathy was dedicated, smart, funny, empathetic … a great listener. Her door was always open — to say hi, to ask how you were adjusting to life in Pittsburgh, or what can I do for you, or just to chat about you or the topics of the day. “

She and DiGiacomo sometimes kept late hours, Williams remembers: “She went above and beyond for everything she did. She was one of those rare people who comes along at the right time and in the right setting.

“When I think of the hundreds of people that Kathy interacted with from all over the world over two decades, it makes me smile that she is remembered so fondly by so many.

DiGiacomo was born Sept. 19, 1957, and retired from the University in 2020. She had previously spent many years working for West Penn Cardiology Associates.

She is survived by her husband of 43 years, Steven J.; daughter Kristin M.; son Matthew “Hoss” J. (Jennifer); and grandchildren Aidan Brunner and Josie, James and Justin DiGiacomo, as well as siblings Jim (Nancy), Carol (Mike) Gapsky and Patti (Tracy) Banze; sister-in-law, Doreen DiGiacomo; brother-in-law Ron Culley; and nephews Jimmy Gapsky and Jacob Banze and niece Alyssa Banze.

Her family plans to hold a celebration of her life from noon to 6 p.m. Oct, 6 at West View VFW Post 2754, 386 Perry Highway.

— Marty Levine

William W. “Bill” Cooley, professor emeritus in the School of Medicine and an early co-director of the Learning Research and Development Center, died July 17, 2024, at 94.

Cooley created a strong psychometric team within the LRDC — faculty focused on accurately measuring how students learn — recalled retired LRDC senior scientist and former School of Education Dean Alan Lesgold. “And that was where his strengths lay,” Lesgold said.

“If you look at the whole pattern of how we decide whether something we’ve proposed should happen in schools really works, the group Bill assembled has done as much as anybody to make that an enterprise that actually does any good,” he added.

Most proposed educational reforms can be shown to work a little, somewhere, he pointed out. However, “in education, for the longest time, has been the belief that if you just came up with this magic pill that works for everyone,” all schools could adopt it. The real challenge, he said, is figuring out what can work for the majority of students, “and that challenge is what Bill’s group worked on. He worked to help us understand the full complexity” of the issue.

Thanks to Cooley, “the School of Education ended up with a strong educational measurement group,” concerned with learning outcomes and factors in classrooms that influenced which students benefited from which educational efforts.

Lesgold remembered the time in 1987 when Cooley returned from a stint as dean of Pitt’s Semester-at-Sea program, which took students around the world on a ship called the Universe, and fellow faculty welcomed Cooley back with a sign that read “Dean of the Universe.”

“He was a great person — his colleagues loved him,” Lesgold said. “His thinking influenced me, and he was a major influence in educational research.”

Born and raised in West Bend, Wisc., Cooley earned his bachelor of science degree from Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisc., and his master of arts from the University of Minnesota. He began his academic career with a year of teaching at Mid-Pacific Institute in Hawaii, then pursued his Ed.D. at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He was hired there as an assistant professor, teaching courses in computer applications and statistical methods as used in educational research. In the early 1960s, he joined Pitt to direct Project Talent, a national study of high-school students, remaining here until his 1998 retirement.

He published five books, more than 20 book chapters and many journal articles. He was the co-director of the LRDC for eight years and served as president of the American Educational Research Association. His spent sabbatical years in Australia and Palo Alto.

He was the husband of Cynthia for 69 years, father of Warren (Anita Klein) and Robin (Jennifer Sanders), and grandfather of Megan Cooley-Klein (Matt Desrochers), Michelle Cooley-Klein (Emily Winner) and Olivia Kelly.

Memorial contributions are suggested to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, pittsburghsymphony.org.

— Marty Levine

Mike Lovell, who served as William K. Whiteford Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Swanson School of Engineering and associate dean for research near the beginning of an academic career that culminated in the presidency of Marquette University, died June 9, 2024.

Following his tenure as an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky and senior software developer at Ansys, he joined the Pitt faculty in 2000.

Sanjeev Shroff, interim dean of engineering, recalled starting on the faculty at Pitt at the same time as Lovell, with Shroff in bioengineering.

“He was a passionate educator and really was deeply invested in student success,” Shroff said, with his teaching focused on product development and product realization.

Shroff credits Lovell with being central to the success of a 10-year, approximately $18 million grant from the National Science Foundation to fund the Engineering Research Center (ERC), which involved several additional universities. “He was instrumental in bringing all these people together,” Shroff said. He called Lovell “an innovator in research who really believed in the power of collaboration. That skill really contributed to the great success of this large grant.”

As associate dean for research, “he was a great communicator and motivator to bring people together to work on a common goal,” Shroff added.

“Although not a bioengineer by formal training,” wrote bioengineering faculty colleague Harvey Borovetz in a remembrance, “Mike played a very important role in helping Pitt Bioengineering grow and develop.”

The ERC included among its collaborators the North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, a historically black college and university (HBCU) in Greensboro. “To this day,” Borovetz wrote, “NCAT is the only HBCU to ever be the lead institution for an NSF ERC. Those of us at Pitt who partnered with Mike on the NSF ERC were always looking for ways to launch new collaborations with him.

“Mike Lovell leaves an amazing legacy in so many ways ... as an academician, university leader, philanthropist, husband, father and colleague/friend. His impact will be with all who knew him for years to come.”

Former Dean Jerry Holder, who hired Lovell as associate dean, noted that Lovell was still an associate professor at that time, whereas most associate deans were already full professors. “He was just so good at that time that hiring someone so young was just the right move,” Holder said. “He was extremely hardworking.”

He recalled Lovell in the engineering building hallways in his athletic gear, since he was a serious and accomplished runner — and always with a slight injury “from pushing himself so hard. It was an illustration of what he did with his career. Everything he did was not just good, it was excellent.”

He moved from Pitt in 2008 to join the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and then Marquette in 2014.

— Marty Levine

Bill Bickel, emeritus professor with 40 years as professor of Administrative Policy Studies in the School of Education and as senior scientist at the Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC), died on May 19, 2024.

At the LRDC, Bickel was a leading member of the Evaluation for Learning Project (EFL), which he established and helped to build, and which promotes the use of evaluations to support improved decision-making by educational leaders, practitioners and policymakers. His research interests included evaluation methodology, evaluation use in organizational and policy contexts and evaluation in urban education reform policy and program implementation.

Through the years, he documented the implementation and effects of programs and practices designed to improve school and teacher effectiveness through school restructuring and professional development. He wrote extensively on whether “effective schools” initiatives improved educational practice.

He and colleague William Cooley published “Decision-oriented Educational Research” based on a seven-year series of case studies of educational reform in Pittsburgh. His national and local documentation research projects received funding from the Ford, Kellogg, Hilton, R.K. Mellon and Grable foundations, the National Science Foundation, the California Endowment, the National Humanities Center and the Lilly Endowment. His later research was related to higher education access and attainment, including studies related to the Pittsburgh Promise Initiative led by the EFL’s current director, Jennifer Iriti.

“Bill was a very jovial colleague to work with; he disarmed people with his humor,” recalled Iriti, also assistant vice chancellor for research inclusion and outreach strategy and a research scientist at the LRDC. She worked with Bickel for nearly 18 years, first when she was a graduate student, and remembers that he was always stopping by a bakery to bring sweets to a meeting.

“He always made space for everybody to be relaxed and to grow and to learn and to contribute,” she said. “It didn’t matter that you were a graduate student, he made everyone feel that your expertise, insights and ideas were equally valuable.”

As a colleague and collaborator, she said, “one of his greatest qualities was that he was always able to see the highest level strategic need in a group — he could bring people together who might have difficulty working together.”

She remembered one particular group of educators who seemed unable to make use of the data Bickel’s research team, on which she was serving, had provided. Some clients, Iriti said, “seemed impervious to data; they just wouldn’t take the requisite action.” Frustrated, the Pitt team turned to Bickel.

He was a reader of philosophy, and immediately thought to bring up Albert Camus’ take on the Greek myth of Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill forever. “Camus would imagine Sisyphus happy in his work,” Iriti says Bickel told his research team. “And we would say, ‘Oh no, that is the worst pep talk ever.’” But it refocused them on the joy of the work, Iriti said.

As Iriti added in a remembrance offered to the family: “Bickel nurtured hundreds of graduate students throughout his career, helping them learn to think about contextualized approaches to using social science research methods to support policy and practice. He was a pragmatist, often reminding his perfectionist students who were spiraling during their dissertations, ‘This is your first good work, not your last great one!’ His teaching style mirrored who he was: reflective and thoughtful but infused with humor and humanity.”

His EFL work, “pioneered in the 1980s … ranged from the impactful study of the Pittsburgh Teacher Center to supporting various philanthropic organizations in using evaluation in their practice.”

Bickel retired in 2015.

He is survived by his wife of 51 years, Donna DiPrima Bickel, his son Jonathan (Julie) and their children Ellie and Owen, and his son Alex (Michy McCreary)

Memorial gifts are suggested to the Westborough Food Pantry, 9 E. Main St., Westborough, MA 01581.

— Marty Levine

Steven Anthony “Tony” Edwards, a 36-year Department of Religious Studies professor known for his rigor of thought — and his ability to train his students to share that trait — died May 5, 2024.

A memorial service will be held on June 16 at the First Hungarian Reformed Church, 416 E. 10th Ave., Munhall. Worship is at 10 a.m., and the memorial service begins at 11 a.m.

“Precision in thought was key to him,” recalled current department chair Adam Shear in a memorial sent to colleagues in the Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences. Edwards, who joined the department in 1980 and retired in 2016, focused his early research on Thomas Aquinas and medieval religious philosophy, then moved to Ludwig Wittgenstein, the philosophy of language and an analytic philosophy of religion.

“He was always interesting to talk to and supportive — in his own way — of his colleagues,” Shear said. “He relished his role as house philosopher in a department full of historians and social scientists. I remember him gently reprimanding the rest of us for ‘bracketing the truth question’” — not addressing whether claims made by religious believers were true or not. “He also made sure that we did not conflate methods and theories …”

Another departmental emeritus faculty member, Rebecca Denova, first had Edwards as a member of her Ph.D. dissertation committee and then as a colleague for 25 years, after he urged the dean to recruit her, she said. “He always challenged us to go above and beyond, which was excellent training,” she added. “Always incredibly supportive.”

She remembered sitting for her oral exam when defending her dissertation, and hearing Edwards quiz her on the opening of the Gospel of John — which is full of metaphors, she noted. “Analyze every metaphor in the preface and how John applies it to the gospel,” Edwards asked her then. “Why did you do that to me?” she asked him afterward. “Oh, I thought it would be great fun to see how you would handle it,” he simply replied.

Teaching her own courses years later, she said. “I could always tell students who had Tony’s courses (first), they were always better prepared.”

Another emeritus faculty colleague, Alex Orbach, told the University Times in a written remembrance, which noted that Edwards had joined the Department of Religious Studies to fill a new position in the philosophy of religion: “Tony’s scholarship focused on the work of Thomas Aquinas and the nature and general character of religious argumentation as it emerged in the writings of major Christian and even Jewish writers (notably, Maimonides) in the pre-Enlightenment era. While religious studies was his home department, Tony was able to reach out and interact creatively with colleagues in other arts and sciences departments, including Richard Gale and David Gauthier in the Department of Philosophy.”

At the time of Edwards’ appointment, the department had a Ph.D. program in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. “Tony’s contribution to that program was significant,” Orbach noted. “He brought a critical and sophisticated methodological approach to the explication of texts and the ideas that generated those presentations. He guided his MA and Ph.D. students to frame and execute research projects into successful dissertation manuscripts that not only produced noteworthy contributions to the field, but also made them credible and viable applicants for positions at major colleges and universities in North America.

“Tony’s commitment to clarity in thought and writing was initially frustrating to his students,” he added. “However, all agreed that it made them sharper thinkers and communicators.” His survey courses on Philosophy of Religion, Religion and Rationality, Ethics and Wisdom attracted many students from across disciplines, “drawn to his philosophically grounded presentations on good and evil, the existence or non-existence of divinity for human behavior, and comparative ethical perspectives as articulated in western and eastern thought.”

Concluded Orbach: “Tony Edwards’ contribution to the pedagogical mission of the Department of Religious Studies helped shape not only the department but those many students who enrolled in its offerings at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

George Yancy, an undergraduate student of Edwards in the 1980s and now faculty member at Emory University, wrote to the UTimes that Edwards “encouraged close exegetical readings of the assigned texts that we read. This was complemented by his encouragement of conceptually robust discussions of the material and exchanges between students. In short, Dr. Edwards was a stellar teacher and a phenomenal scholar.

“What I found especially unique and laudable about Dr. Edwards,” Yancy said, “was the fact that he was open to discussions that didn’t fall within the predominant analytic style of doing philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. In other words, he was open to religious forms of discourse that were epistemically meaningful within their contexts or forms of life.

“He helped me to understand the importance of how religious ways of seeing the world, thinking about the world, needn’t import Western philosophical ‘authority’ to legitimate them. Asian philosophical and religious thought had its own integrity. 

“Dr. Edwards was also trained in the discourse of analytic philosophy … Dr. Edwards invited me and other students in the course to attend a lecture that he was giving on some aspect, the specificity of which I can’t recall, of Aquinas’s work. But what I do recall is a moment during the Q&A when a famous analytic philosopher of religion posed a question to Dr. Edwards. The question wasn’t designed to confuse, but asked for clarification. Given Dr. Edwards’ training within the analytic tradition, along with a hefty dose of logic, his articulated response demonstrated deep acumen. The look on the philosopher’s face communicated that Dr. Edwards was not only philosophically up to the task, but that he was familiar with the direction of the question and had preciously given it serious thought. Along with other students who attended the lecture, I felt honored to be in the presence of a scholar of Dr. Edward’s brilliance.”

Born on July 11, 1948, in Torrance, Calif., Edwards earned his BA from Stanford University and his graduate degrees from University of California–Santa Barbara (MA) and Stanford (Ph.D.).

He is survived by his wife, Lisa M. Kerestesi; son Miles Travis Edwards; stepson Alec M. Kerestesi; sister Hilary; brothers Phillip and Andrew; and many nieces and nephews.

Memorial gifts are suggested to Doctors without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières) or the donor’s favored charity.

— Marty Levine

Richard A. “Tony” Eichelberger, one of the founding faculty of the Policy, Planning and Evaluation studies doctoral program in the School Education, died Jan. 9, 2024. A memorial service is set for 2 to 4 p.m. May 17 at Heinz Chapel.

Former student and colleague Cindy Tananis, now associate professor emeritus in the school, said that Eichelberger was an early proponent of program evaluation as a critical component of public planning and ongoing decision making in education. He served as an advisor to many contracted evaluations of educational programs, especially focusing on impacts for children and families living in poverty. 

He was also a key faculty member in establishing a core course in disciplined inquiry for educational doctoral students, publishing a central text in the area, “Disciplined Inquiry: Understanding and Doing Educational Research” (1989).

“Tony became both my doctoral advisor and colleague across the years,” said Tananis, recalling their work together on evaluation projects, teaching courses and undertaking grants and contracts. “He was generous in his shared time and expertise — always willing to provide his perspective while also respecting others’ views. He listened carefully, underlining the importance of understanding the perspectives of clients and stakeholders in education. His ability to listen without judgment was also pivotal in his teaching as he encouraged students to stay with the problem — working through to a deeper understanding.’

Eichelberger’s wife, Rita Bean — also a professor emeritus in the school — recalled her husband joining Pitt’s Learning, Research and Development Center around 1970 to work on a federally funded study called Project Follow Through, which the government today calls “the most extensive educational experiment ever conducted.” It had begun in 1968 and was aimed at finding the best curricula to serve at-risk children in grades K-3. The study involved more than 200,000 children in 178 spots in the U.S., covering 22 different educational models.

“Evaluation was his major emphasis,” Bean said, “working in these national programs and trying to find out what programs were best for young children, especially in reading, writing and math.”

Eichelberger became the editor of Evaluation News (1983-1988), a publication of the American Evaluation Association, and served on panels at the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., helping to vet grant applications.

As an instructor, Bean said, “the feedback that he gave to students was just remarkable — the feedback he gave to every page.” The pair collaborated on papers early on, following their marriage in 1983, and received a grant from Pittsburgh’s Catholic diocese to evaluate its program, Extra Mile, in local Catholic schools in the late 1990s.

Bean said her husband wrote his book long-hand: “That’s what I always thought was impressive.” He retired from Pitt nearly 15 years ago.

Eichelberger was also the academic and research advisor in the doctoral program for Gregory H. Turner, now retired as a faculty member and associate dean for faculty development at Florida State University. Recalling the work of both Eichelberger and Bean, Turner said that “their passion, disciplinary acumen, scholarship and dedication to make meaningful discoveries in the field of education, and especially their commitment to the holistic development of their students, continue to be an inspiration to me as a teacher, higher education administrator and scholar.”

“As a doctoral student, I observed and was able to work with them and their collaborative partnerships with individuals from many different groups and disciplines: state and federal governments, foundations, school districts and faculty from other universities, as well as with departments within the University of Pittsburgh,” he added.

He learned many lessons from them both, he said: “To get your message understood by others, less is more: simplify, simplify, simplify, then summarize and highlight your points … Looking ahead, focus on direction rather than solely the ultimate destination … To succeed in your doctoral studies, focus on the outcomes; to keep succeeding pay attention to the processes that lead to outcomes.”

Eichelberger, he said, “always empathized high expectations of his students and their individual achievements, progress, and excellence – along with demonstrating understanding, compassion and humor with them.

“Tony was a humble, humorous, wonderful person and a transformational teacher, mentor and friend,” he added. “He positively touched lives and mentored many students and faculty over the course of his long career.”

Born on April 15, 1940, in Pekin, Ill., Eichelberger earned his Ph.D. from Southern Illinois University. He had gotten his undergraduate degree at the University of Illinois on a baseball scholarship and played minor league baseball.

Along with his wife, he is survived by children Erin and Derek (Barbara) Eichelberger; grandchildren Ethan, Ava and Dylan; sisters Jean (Whitson) McClain, Sally Caracheo and Alosia (Ron) Carlson; and many nieces and nephews.

Memorial gifts are suggested to the MSA Coalition (www.multiplesystematrophy.org/donate) or to the Rita Bean & Tony Eichelberger Endowed Fund at the University of Pittsburgh (http://giveto.pitt.edu/eichelberger), whose purpose is to study and promote equity in education, economic stability, and health.

— Marty Levine

Walt Bielich, Pitt Varsity Letter Club executive director for more than 20 years and a Pitt football letterman, died March 6, 2024 at 94.

“Walt was so successful in putting this together,” says Sam Clancy, the Varsity Letter Club’s current head. “There was no better person to me than Walt Bielich. He was a guy I tried to pattern myself after. I knew how much he cared about the University. Walt and his generation were so proud to be from the University of Pittsburgh and they would give back.”

Bielich was instrumental, with storied Pitt football coach Jock Sutherland, in creating the Awardees of Distinction Dinner in 1961, which recognizes athletic alumni who have impacted their profession and community through their degree. Bielich also helped raise more than a million dollars to fund Pitt’s George I. Carson Graduate Fellowship for recent Pitt undergraduates who excelled here in academics and athletics.

“He was the best,” Clancy says. “He taught me that the job is getting to know everybody.” When Clancy first started, he recalls, he would call Bielich as many as three times a week to ask, “‘How did you guys do it?’

“I interacted with seven decades of alumni because of Walt Bielich. Walt brought all those guys back into the University. He was just the best human being you want to be around. He made me feel like I was part of his family and he felt like he was a part of my family.”

Bielich grew up on Pittsburgh’s South Side slopes, playing football and basketball at South High School with the class of 1948.

Before completing his undergraduate degree, Bielich served three years in the Marine Corps during the Korean War. He graduated from Pitt in 1955 with a bachelor's degree in economics, then earned a master's degree here, also in economics, in 1957.

While an undergraduate, Bielich lettered twice in football (1954-55).

Bielich joined the Panthers’ athletic department as an assistant director of development in 1987 and was instrumental in forming the department's national alumni network as head of the Pitt Varsity Letter Club. After more than two decades with Pitt Athletics, he retired from his formal role but continued his personal support as a fan and Club committee member.

The Varsity Letter Club was essentially his second career, begun a year after he retired from the U.S. Steel Corporation. As a third-generation steelworker, he had risen from melter foreman at the U.S. Steel Homestead Works to assistant to the general superintendent of the plant after 23 years. He also was manager of several company plants in Indiana before working for 10 more years as a company consultant in Eastern Europe, assessing facilities there for possible purchase by U.S. Steel.

He also served as a councilman for Bethel Park Ward 4 and with the Bethel Park Democratic Committee.

He was married to the former Hope Mervosh (a graduate of Pitt's School of Education) for 62 years until her passing in 2015. They endowed a scholarship in Hope’s name that is awarded to a senior Pitt volleyball player each year.

He is survived by sons John Bielich (Mary Pat Lackner) and Steven Bielich; daughters Norma Bielich and Mary Bielich (Matt Tuite); granddaughters Meghan Bielich and Bridget Bielich; grandsons Steven Bielich (Jacqueline Coles) and Johnny Bielich; great-grandchildren Vivian Bielich, Harrison Bielich and Quentin Bielich; and sister Marlene (Bielich) Alexoff (the late Carl Alexoff).

Memorial gifts are suggested to the Hope Mervosh Bielich women’s volleyball scholarship, payable to the University of Pittsburgh Department of Athletics, PO Box 7436, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213.

— Marty Levine

Brian Joseph “Ski” Frankowski, a 25-year designer/fabricator for the Medical Devices Laboratory in the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, died January 6, 2024, at 60.

William Federspiel, professor of bioengineering in the Swanson School of Engineering, hired Frankowski in 1997 for his lab, which develops medical devices for critical care medicine patients experiencing respiratory failure, including blood purification devices. The two worked closely throughout the years.

“His impact was tremendous,” Federspiel says. Frankowski ran the machine shop in the lab, which made the prototypes to be tested there. “When we had these ideas … Brian would be the one who would translate the brainstorming into detailed mechanical drawings of what was to be manufactured.”

He also worked through the years with Ph.D. students in Federspiel’s lab, guiding them through bench testing of devices, and worked with McGowan’s Center for Preclinical Studies’ further research on the devices. He had excellent relations with other staff and faculty, Federspiel says: “Brian really had an infectious personality and people just loved the guy. Everyone enjoyed Brian’s presence.”

Frankowski even helped to take the case to Harrisburg for state funding, Federspiel recalls.

“With his help over the years we probably brought in over $20 million in research funding,” he adds. “A lot of that was Brian’s” work, which resulted in his co-authorship of about 75 peer-reviewed research articles and more than 20 patents.

“Having Brian in the lab, he could really trouble-shoot all our pieces of equipment well,” Federspiel says. “Brian could fix just about everything. We rarely had to call in any specialized technicians.

“The success of my career at the University of Pittsburgh and at McGowan and in bioengineering, I just don’t think would have happened without Brian Frankowski.”

One of the Ph.D. students Frankowski oversaw and aided in the lab most recently was Katelin Samski, now a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Medicine’s Department of Ophthalmology.

“Brian went above and beyond,” she says. “He did his job, but he did way more than just that. He was a mentor and a friend” to most of the graduate students. “It was invaluable to have someone like him, who had 25 years of experimental experience.”

She also appreciated his generosity in bringing in home-cooked and baked foods and even buying extra food for students. “He would always ask how you were and what you were up to. How excited I would be to tell Brian what I would be up to that weekend, and how excited he would be for me.”

She recalled an earlier moment of her time in the lab. “Brian was known for his tough love. He would tell it to you straight,” just to make sure you learned a procedure. Once, working on a very complicated experiment, she hadn’t gotten very far by the end of the day and was feeling very stressed. Frankowski offered to stay to help, but she assured him she would only need a few extra hours. At 4 a.m., she finally finished gathering the data but was too exhausted to clean up.

“I know I’m leaving it dirty,” she texted him. “I’ll come back and clean it up later.” But by the time she returned later that day he had taken care of everything. “Up until that time I had been a little intimidated by Brian,” she says. “It was all clean and dry and put away. That was probably a couple of hours of work. That’s when I knew he cared about me. That meant a lot to me. We were going to be good friends too.”

He is survived by parents Bob and Sandy Frankowski; spouse of 33 years Devin Frankowski; child Michael Frankowski; siblings Tracey Frankowski and Robin Geisler (Lloyd); and nieces Jessica Daley (Pat) Julia Geisler, Jennifer Geisler and Sarah Frankowski.

— Marty Levine

A longtime scholar of the work of G.W. Leibniz, a fellow German-born philosopher and polymath, University of Pittsburgh professor Nicholas Rescher grew intrigued by a cipher machine that Leibniz designed during the 1670s but never built.

So, Rescher — characteristically, given his insatiable curiosity — oversaw the production in 2012 of the first working model of the device, which went on display at Pitt’s Hillman Library. Rescher also wrote a related volume, “Leibniz and Cryptography,” one of more than 100 books he authored in addition to 200-plus scholarly articles.

Rescher, a distinguished university professor of philosophy internationally renowned for his work on logic, metaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of science, among a wealth of other topics both scholarly and popular, died on Jan. 5, 2024, at the age of 95.

During a research and teaching career extending over six decades, he helped establish and maintain Pitt’s Department of Philosophy as one of the world’s top philosophy units. In addition to serving as department chair, Rescher was director and later chair of the University’s Center for Philosophy of Science. In 2010, Pitt established the Nicholas Rescher Prize for Contributions to Systematic Philosophy to honor his faculty work and his gifts of archival materials to the University.

“What was perhaps most remarkable about Rescher was the sheer range of his intellect,” recalled Pitt Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Robert Brandom. “There is no area of philosophy — from medieval Arabic to mathematical logic, through philosophy of science, to philosophy of mind, ethics, and welfare economics — that he did not think hard about and make contributions to.

“He once remarked that his motto was a variant of Terence’s famous tag ‘Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto’ — in his case ‘I am a philosopher; nothing philosophical is alien to me.’ It is altogether fitting that his heroes were other great polymaths, Leibniz among theoretical philosophers, but also the more practical Benjamin Franklin.”

Born in 1928 in Hagen, Germany, Rescher came to the United States at the age of 10 as a refugee from the Nazis. He earned his Ph.D. at Princeton at age 22 (still a record for that school’s philosophy department) and served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War. After working at the RAND Corporation briefly in the 1950s, he joined the faculty at Lehigh University and then, in 1961, at Pitt.

Brandom first met Rescher in 1976, when Brandom interviewed successfully for an assistant professorship.

“I explained my dissertation project for 5 minutes, and Nick asked the first question,” Brandom remembered. “He said: ‘So if I understand you correctly, you think the hypothetical use of “true” is more fundamental than the categorical use?’ This was a far better and deeper description of what I was doing than I had come up with in two years of working on it. I immediately thought: Imagine what it would be like to have colleagues like this to chat with about what one is working on.

“A year later, after I was hired and he and I had adjoining offices, he stuck his head in my door and asked me if I would like to look at his current book manuscript on possible worlds. He said he was breaking from orthodoxy and using ‘weirdie worlds.’ (I found out he meant inconsistent and incomplete ones.) The jokey, self-deprecating tone was characteristic of the playfulness with which he always approached hard technical problems. I was inspired by his ideas and wrote a couple of drafts extending them to areas he had not addressed. He suggested that we — he the distinguished university professor and me the most junior assistant prof — co-author a longer book. The result of that generous gesture was ‘The Logic of Inconsistency,’ my first such publication.”

Brandom said Rescher “was always an old-school gentleman: urbane, cultivated and never apparently mindful of his own eminence,” but he also displayed a playful, occasionally off-center sense of humor.

“When the Philosophy Department moved from Schenley Hall to the Cathedral of Learning, we learned that the whole floor we had occupied was going to be gutted and redone,” Brandom said. “We had a massive party, during which Nick, tall and strong, walked the length of the long corridor, holding over his head a graduate student whose boots were periodically dipped and re-dipped in red paint, resulting in footprints all along the ceiling. Nick said he'd always wanted to do that.”

Rescher served as a president of the American Philosophical Association, the American Catholic Philosophy Association, the Leibniz Society of North America, the Charles S. Peirce Society, and the Metaphysical Society of America as well as secretary general of the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology.

He was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Europea, the Royal Society of Canada, and the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. He was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize for Humanistic Scholarship in 1984, the Belgian Prix Mercier in 2005, and the Aquinas Medal of the American Catholic Philosophical Association in 2007. He also received the premier cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Helmholtz Medal of the German Academy of Sciences of Berlin-Brandenburg.

Always up for intellectual challenges, Rescher in his 60s learned Spanish in preparation for a lecturing stint in Spain. (He already spoke Arabic, French, German and Latin in addition to English.) In his 80s, Rescher took up playing bridge and went on to win national master’s status.

Preceded in death by his wife, Dorothy Henle Rescher, he is survived by his children, Elizabeth, Mark, Owen and Catherine Rescher; daughter-in-law, Erika Dirkse; grandchildren, Myles, Felix and Ivo Rescher; and many nieces and their families.

Memorial gifts to the Dr. Nicholas Rescher Fund for the Advancement of the Department of Philosophy may be made to the University of Pittsburgh c/o the Office of Institutional Advancement, 102 Park Plaza Building, 128 N. Craig St., Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Online giving may be arranged via www.giveto.pitt.edu. For information on donations by phone or check, call 1-800-817-8943 or 412-624-5800.

— Bruce Steele via Pittwire, photo courtesy of the Rescher Archive