Don Kennedy died today from COVID. He was a wonderful man and had world changing impacts on his students - I have missed him on many occasions since he fell into ill health a few years ago and had to step back. I mourn his passing today.

https://news.stanford.edu/?p=33639  via @Stanford

Don was an educator in the best possible way - drawing interest out of his students. Helping them to discover and develop their best selves. And supporting them all the way (long after they left @stanford) in their passions and their careers.

Don - and the curriculum in Hum Bio that he championed - was an inspiration to my mother. She went on, in part because of his advising (she's also a total bad ass), to be the only woman in her medical school class and an important researcher in the pediatric AIDS community.

He began a process that is still playing out at @stanford today of connecting the engineering and hard science side of campus to the social science side. He was an early champion of initiatives like @StanfordWoods and the E-IPER graduate program.

He was an early champion of my work - and the work of others at Stanford trying to connect the projects of a research university with an engineering focus to real world problems having to do with environment, energy, and climate.

Most of all, Don was an amazing person who always had time for young people. Who always wanted to know how YOU were doing instead of regaling you with his many accomplishments, who strove throughout his professional career to build something better out of @stanford and the world.

I already missed him. Today I miss him all the more.