RIP: John Lisman (1944-2017)

http://blogs.brandeis.edu/science/2017/10/21/john-lisman-1944-2017/ "I first met John while postdoc’ing with Eve and was fortunate to have hosted him as a distinguished speaker a few times in Toronto.

I have a distinct memory of John telling me “welcome to the black hole!” when I told him that I was now doing modeling in the hippocampus – this worried me a bit at the time, especially since my husband is an astrophysicist, but I have stuck with the hippocampus so far. This was great because the subsequent overlap led to me getting to know John and his work more than I might have otherwise. I was able to benefit from the depth of his knowledge and have discussions about ‘bistability’ modeling in his work…

Reading the comments and watching the memorial service have been lovely to appreciate the type of whole person he was and how lucky I am to have had a chance to interact with him.

Thank you."

Memorable words from the memorial:

Death is not always tragic. If we have enough years to test our skills, if we can see and enjoy the results of that work, if we can nurture our family and have them near, if we can love our friends and share their pains and pleasures over many seasons, if we have the time to develop our own unique style and know that it will not be easily forgotten, if we can die quickly without the agonies of prolonged suffering, then death is not tragic. Our loss is very difficult. John's death was not tragic. (due to Rabbi Sherwin Wine, as cited by John's wife).