Randy Pausch | |
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Born | Randolph Frederick Pausch October 23, 1960 Ridgeveiw, highschool, U.S. |
Died | July 25, 2008 Chesapeake, Virginia, U.S. | (aged 47)
Cause of death | Pancreatic cancer |
Alma mater | Brown University B.S.'82, Carnegie Mellon University PhD.'88 |
Known for | Creator of Alice software project Cofounder of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center virtual reality The Last Lecture |
Spouse | Jai Glasgow |
Children | 3 |
Awards | Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education Fellow of the ACM Time's Time 100[1] |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Computer science Human–computer interaction |
Institutions | Carnegie Mellon University University of Virginia |
Doctoral advisor | Alfred Spector |
Randolph Frederick Pausch[2] (/paʊʃ/) (October 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) was an American educator, a professor of computer science, human–computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Pausch learned he had pancreatic cancer in September 2006. In August 2007, he was given a terminal diagnosis: "three to six months of good health left". He gave an upbeat lecture titled, "The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon, which became a popular YouTube video and led to other media appearances. He co-authored a book of the same name, The Last Lecture, which became a New York Times best-seller.
Pausch died of complications from pancreatic cancer on July 25, 2008, aged 47.[3]