Randy Pausch
Encyclopedia
Randolph Frederick "Randy" Pausch (October 23, 1960 – July 25, 2008) was an American professor
of computer science
and human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University
(CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
.
Pausch learned that he had pancreatic cancer
in September 2006, and in August 2007 he was given a terminal diagnosis: "3 to 6 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 then co-authored a book called The Last Lecture
on the same theme, which became a New York Times
best-seller.
Pausch died of complications from pancreatic cancer on July 25, 2008.
. After graduating from Oakland Mills High School
in Columbia, Pausch received his bachelor's degree
in computer science from Brown University
in May 1982 and his Ph.D.
in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University
in August 1988. While completing his doctoral studies, Pausch was briefly employed at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and Adobe Systems
.
's School of Engineering and Applied Science from 1988 until 1997. While there, he completed sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering
and Electronic Arts
(EA). In 1997, Pausch became Associate Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction and Design, at Carnegie Mellon University. He was a co-founder in 1998, along with Don Marinelli, of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center
(ETC), and he started the Building Virtual Worlds course at CMU and taught it for 10 years. He consulted with Google
on user interface
design and also consulted with PARC, Imagineering, and Media Metrix
. Pausch is also the founder of the Alice
software project. He received the National Science Foundation
Presidential Young Investigator Award
and was a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellow. Pausch was the author or co-author of five books and over 70 articles.
Pausch received two awards from ACM
in 2007 for his achievements in computing education: the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award and the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education
Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education. He was also inducted as a Fellow of the ACM in 2007.
and underwent a Whipple procedure (pancreaticoduodenectomy)
on September 19, 2006, in an unsuccessful attempt to halt his pancreatic cancer. He was told in August 2007 to expect a remaining three to six months of good health. He soon moved his family to Chesapeake, Virginia
, a suburb near Norfolk, to be close to his wife's family. On March 13, 2008, Pausch advocated for greater federal funding for pancreatic cancer before the United States Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. In the week prior to this, he had been hospitalized in order to have needle aspiration of pleural effusion
in his right lung.
On May 2, 2008, a positron emission tomography
(PET) scan showed that he had very tiny (5 millimetre (0.196850393700787 in) or less) metastases in his lungs and some lymph node
s in his chest. He also had some metastases in his peritoneal
and retroperitoneal
cavities. On June 26, 2008, Pausch indicated that he was considering stopping further chemotherapy because of the potential adverse side effects. He was, however, considering some immuno-therapy-based
approaches. On July 24, on behalf of Pausch, a friend anonymously posted a message on Pausch's webpage stating that a biopsy had indicated that the cancer had progressed further than what was expected from recent PET scans and that Pausch had "taken a step down" and was "much sicker than he had been". The friend also stated that Pausch had then enrolled in a hospice
program designed to provide palliative care
to those at the end of life.
Pausch died from pancreatic cancer
at his family's home in Chesapeake, Virginia
on July 25, 2008, at the age of 47. He is survived by his wife, Jai, and their three children, Dylan, Logan, and Chloe.
During the lecture, Pausch was upbeat and humorous, alternating between wisecracks, insights on computer science and engineering education, advice on building multi-disciplinary collaborations, working in groups and interacting with other people, offering inspirational life lessons, and performing push-ups on stage. He also commented on the irony that the "Last Lecture" series had recently been renamed as "Journeys", saying, "I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it." After Pausch finished his lecture, Steve Seabolt, on behalf of Electronic Arts
—which is now collaborating with CMU in the development of Alice 3.0—pledged to honor Pausch by creating a memorial scholarship for women in computer science, in recognition of Pausch's support and mentoring of women in CS and engineering.
CMU president Jared Cohon
spoke emotionally of Pausch's humanity and called his contributions to the university and to education "remarkable and stunning". He then announced that CMU will celebrate Pausch's impact on the world by building and naming after Pausch a raised pedestrian bridge to connect CMU's new Computer Science building and the Center for the Arts, symbolizing the way Pausch linked those two disciplines. Brown University professor Andries van Dam
followed Pausch's last lecture with a tearful and impassioned speech praising him for his courage and leadership, calling him a role model.
The Randy Pausch Memorial Footbridge was dedicated on October 30, 2009, with Jai, Dylan, Logan and Chloe Pausch cutting the ribbon.
-owned publisher Hyperion
paid $6.7 million for the rights to publish a book about Pausch called The Last Lecture
, co-authored by Pausch and Wall Street Journal
reporter Jeffrey Zaslow
. The book became a New York Times best-seller on April 28, 2008. The Last Lecture expands on Pausch's speech. The book's first printing had 400,000 copies, and it has been translated into 46 languages. It has spent more than 85 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and there are now more than 4.5 million copies in print in the U.S. alone. Despite speculation that the book would be made into a movie, Pausch had denied these rumors, stating that "there's a reason to do the book, but if it's telling the story of the lecture in the medium of film, we already have that."
on September 21, 2007. His "Last Lecture" attracted wide attention from the international media, became an Internet hit, and was viewed over a million times in the first month after its delivery. On October 22, 2007, Pausch appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show
where he discussed his situation and summarized his "Last Lecture". On October 6, 2007, Pausch joined the Pittsburgh Steelers
for the day during their regular practice, after the organization learned that one of his childhood dreams mentioned in his "Last Lecture" was to play in the NFL.
On April 9, 2008, the ABC
network aired an hour long Diane Sawyer feature on Pausch titled "The Last Lecture: A Love Story For Your Life". On July 29, 2008, ABC
aired a follow up to the Last Lecture special, remembering Pausch and his famous lecture.
on November 27, 2007 at the University of Virginia, to an audience of over 850 people. In March 2008, Pausch appeared in a public service announcement video and testified before Congress in support of cancer research. On May 18, 2008, Pausch made a surprise return appearance at Carnegie Mellon, giving a speech at the commencement ceremony, as well as attending the School of Computer Science's diploma ceremony, and on May 19 Pausch appeared on the Good Morning America show. His lecture, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
", was nominated at the 2007 YouTube
Video Awards.
A devoted Star Trek
fan, Pausch was invited by film director J. J. Abrams
to film a role in Star Trek. Abrams heard of Pausch's condition and sent a personal e-mail inviting Pausch to the set. Pausch accepted and traveled to Los Angeles, California
to shoot his scene. In addition to appearing in the film, he also has a line of dialogue
at the beginning of the film ("Captain, we have visual.") and donated the $217.06 paycheck to charity.
Videos:
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
and human-computer interaction and design at Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
(CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
.
Pausch learned that he had pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer refers to a malignant neoplasm of the pancreas. The most common type of pancreatic cancer, accounting for 95% of these tumors is adenocarcinoma, which arises within the exocrine component of the pancreas. A minority arises from the islet cells and is classified as a...
in September 2006, and in August 2007 he was given a terminal diagnosis: "3 to 6 months of good health left". He gave an upbeat lecture titled "The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams was a lecture given by Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Randy Pausch on September 18, 2007 that received a large amount of media coverage, and was the base for The Last Lecture, a New York Times best-selling book co-authored with Wall...
" on September 18, 2007, at Carnegie Mellon, which became a popular YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
video and led to other media appearances. He then co-authored a book called The Last Lecture
The Last Lecture
The Last Lecture is a New York Times best-selling book co-authored by Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal...
on the same theme, which became a New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
best-seller.
Pausch died of complications from pancreatic cancer on July 25, 2008.
Early life
Pausch was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in Columbia, MarylandColumbia, Maryland
Columbia is a planned community that consists of ten self-contained villages, located in Howard County, Maryland, United States. It began with the idea that a city could enhance its residents' quality of life. Creator and developer James W. Rouse saw the new community in terms of human values, not...
. After graduating from Oakland Mills High School
Oakland Mills High School
Oakland Mills High School was established in 1973 as one of the first high schools to service the Columbia, Maryland area. It is part of the Howard County Public School System.The building had its first renovation in 1991, then again in 1998...
in Columbia, Pausch received his bachelor's degree
Bachelor's degree
A bachelor's degree is usually an academic degree awarded for an undergraduate course or major that generally lasts for three or four years, but can range anywhere from two to six years depending on the region of the world...
in computer science from Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
in May 1982 and his Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
in August 1988. While completing his doctoral studies, Pausch was briefly employed at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center and Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems
Adobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
.
Computer science career
Pausch was an assistant and associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of VirginiaUniversity of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
's School of Engineering and Applied Science from 1988 until 1997. While there, he completed sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering
Walt Disney Imagineering
Walt Disney Imagineering is the design and development arm of the Walt Disney Company, responsible for the creation and construction of Disney theme parks worldwide...
and Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
(EA). In 1997, Pausch became Associate Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction and Design, at Carnegie Mellon University. He was a co-founder in 1998, along with Don Marinelli, of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center
Entertainment Technology Center
The Entertainment Technology Center is a department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located at the Pittsburgh Technology Center....
(ETC), and he started the Building Virtual Worlds course at CMU and taught it for 10 years. He consulted with Google
Google
Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...
on user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
design and also consulted with PARC, Imagineering, and Media Metrix
ComScore
comScore is a Internet marketing research company providing marketing data and services to many of the Internet's largest businesses. comScore tracks all internet data on its surveyed computers in order to study online behavior....
. Pausch is also the founder of the Alice
Alice (software)
Alice is a freeware object-oriented educational programming language with an integrated development environment . Later versions are implemented in Java. Alice uses a drag and drop environment to create computer animations using 3D models...
software project. He received the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
Presidential Young Investigator Award
Presidential Young Investigator Award
The Presidential Young Investigator Award was awarded by the National Science Foundation. The program operated from 1984 to 1991, and was replaced by the NSF Young Investigator Awards and Presidential Faculty Fellows Program...
and was a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellow. Pausch was the author or co-author of five books and over 70 articles.
Pausch received two awards from ACM
Association for Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery is a learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 as the world's first scientific and educational computing society. Its membership is more than 92,000 as of 2009...
in 2007 for his achievements in computing education: the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award and the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education
SIGCSE
SIGCSE is the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education, which provides a forum for educators to discuss issues related to the development, implementation, and/or evaluation of computing programs, curricula, and courses, as well as syllabi,...
Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education. He was also inducted as a Fellow of the ACM in 2007.
Cancer and death
Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancerPancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer refers to a malignant neoplasm of the pancreas. The most common type of pancreatic cancer, accounting for 95% of these tumors is adenocarcinoma, which arises within the exocrine component of the pancreas. A minority arises from the islet cells and is classified as a...
and underwent a Whipple procedure (pancreaticoduodenectomy)
Pancreaticoduodenectomy
A pancreaticoduodenectomy, pancreatoduodenectomy, Whipple procedure, or Kausch-Whipple procedure, is a major surgical operation involving the pancreas, duodenum, and other organs...
on September 19, 2006, in an unsuccessful attempt to halt his pancreatic cancer. He was told in August 2007 to expect a remaining three to six months of good health. He soon moved his family to Chesapeake, Virginia
Chesapeake, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 199,184 people, 69,900 households, and 54,172 families residing in the city. The population density was 584.6 people per square mile . There were 72,672 housing units at an average density of 213.3 per square mile...
, a suburb near Norfolk, to be close to his wife's family. On March 13, 2008, Pausch advocated for greater federal funding for pancreatic cancer before the United States Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. In the week prior to this, he had been hospitalized in order to have needle aspiration of pleural effusion
Pleural effusion
Pleural effusion is excess fluid that accumulates between the two pleural layers, the fluid-filled space that surrounds the lungs. Excessive amounts of such fluid can impair breathing by limiting the expansion of the lungs during ventilation.-Pathophysiology:...
in his right lung.
On May 2, 2008, a positron emission tomography
Positron emission tomography
Positron emission tomography is nuclear medicine imaging technique that produces a three-dimensional image or picture of functional processes in the body. The system detects pairs of gamma rays emitted indirectly by a positron-emitting radionuclide , which is introduced into the body on a...
(PET) scan showed that he had very tiny (5 millimetre (0.196850393700787 in) or less) metastases in his lungs and some lymph node
Lymph node
A lymph node is a small ball or an oval-shaped organ of the immune system, distributed widely throughout the body including the armpit and stomach/gut and linked by lymphatic vessels. Lymph nodes are garrisons of B, T, and other immune cells. Lymph nodes are found all through the body, and act as...
s in his chest. He also had some metastases in his peritoneal
Peritoneum
The peritoneum is the serous membrane that forms the lining of the abdominal cavity or the coelom — it covers most of the intra-abdominal organs — in amniotes and some invertebrates...
and retroperitoneal
Retroperitoneum
The retroperitoneal space is the anatomical space in the abdominal cavity behind the peritoneum. It has no specific delineating anatomical structures...
cavities. On June 26, 2008, Pausch indicated that he was considering stopping further chemotherapy because of the potential adverse side effects. He was, however, considering some immuno-therapy-based
Cancer immunotherapy
Cancer immunotherapy is the use of the immune system to reject cancer. The main premise is stimulating the patient's immune system to attack the malignant tumor cells that are responsible for the disease...
approaches. On July 24, on behalf of Pausch, a friend anonymously posted a message on Pausch's webpage stating that a biopsy had indicated that the cancer had progressed further than what was expected from recent PET scans and that Pausch had "taken a step down" and was "much sicker than he had been". The friend also stated that Pausch had then enrolled in a hospice
Hospice
Hospice is a type of care and a philosophy of care which focuses on the palliation of a terminally ill patient's symptoms.In the United States and Canada:*Gentiva Health Services, national provider of hospice and home health services...
program designed to provide palliative care
Palliative care
Palliative care is a specialized area of healthcare that focuses on relieving and preventing the suffering of patients...
to those at the end of life.
Pausch died from pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer refers to a malignant neoplasm of the pancreas. The most common type of pancreatic cancer, accounting for 95% of these tumors is adenocarcinoma, which arises within the exocrine component of the pancreas. A minority arises from the islet cells and is classified as a...
at his family's home in Chesapeake, Virginia
Chesapeake, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 199,184 people, 69,900 households, and 54,172 families residing in the city. The population density was 584.6 people per square mile . There were 72,672 housing units at an average density of 213.3 per square mile...
on July 25, 2008, at the age of 47. He is survived by his wife, Jai, and their three children, Dylan, Logan, and Chloe.
Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
Pausch delivered his "Last Lecture", titled Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, at CMU on September 18, 2007. He gave an abridged version of his speech on the Oprah show in October 2007. The talk was modeled after an ongoing series of lectures where top academics are asked to think deeply about what matters to them, and then give a hypothetical "final talk", with a topic such as "what wisdom would you try to impart to the world if you knew it was your last chance?" Before speaking, Pausch received a long standing ovation from a large crowd of over 400 colleagues and students. When he motioned them to sit down, saying, "Make me earn it," someone in the audience shouted back, "You did!"During the lecture, Pausch was upbeat and humorous, alternating between wisecracks, insights on computer science and engineering education, advice on building multi-disciplinary collaborations, working in groups and interacting with other people, offering inspirational life lessons, and performing push-ups on stage. He also commented on the irony that the "Last Lecture" series had recently been renamed as "Journeys", saying, "I thought, damn, I finally nailed the venue and they renamed it." After Pausch finished his lecture, Steve Seabolt, on behalf of Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
—which is now collaborating with CMU in the development of Alice 3.0—pledged to honor Pausch by creating a memorial scholarship for women in computer science, in recognition of Pausch's support and mentoring of women in CS and engineering.
CMU president Jared Cohon
Jared Cohon
Jared Leigh Cohon is the eighth President of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology,...
spoke emotionally of Pausch's humanity and called his contributions to the university and to education "remarkable and stunning". He then announced that CMU will celebrate Pausch's impact on the world by building and naming after Pausch a raised pedestrian bridge to connect CMU's new Computer Science building and the Center for the Arts, symbolizing the way Pausch linked those two disciplines. Brown University professor Andries van Dam
Andries van Dam
Andries "Andy" van Dam is a Dutch-born American professor of computer science and former Vice-President for Research at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Together with Ted Nelson he contributed to the first hypertext system, HES in the late 1960s. He co-authored Computer Graphics:...
followed Pausch's last lecture with a tearful and impassioned speech praising him for his courage and leadership, calling him a role model.
The Randy Pausch Memorial Footbridge was dedicated on October 30, 2009, with Jai, Dylan, Logan and Chloe Pausch cutting the ribbon.
The Last Lecture
The DisneyThe Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
-owned publisher Hyperion
Hyperion (publisher)
Hyperion Books is a general-interest book publishing part of the Disney-ABC Television Group, a division of The Walt Disney Company, established in 1991. Hyperion publishes general-interest fiction and non-fiction books for adults under the following imprints: ABC Daytime Press, ESPN Books,...
paid $6.7 million for the rights to publish a book about Pausch called The Last Lecture
The Last Lecture
The Last Lecture is a New York Times best-selling book co-authored by Randy Pausch, a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction, and design at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal...
, co-authored by Pausch and Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
reporter Jeffrey Zaslow
Jeffrey Zaslow
Jeffrey Zaslow is an American journalist and a columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He is also the author or coauthor of several bestselling books: The Last Lecture with Randy Pausch, Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters with Capt...
. The book became a New York Times best-seller on April 28, 2008. The Last Lecture expands on Pausch's speech. The book's first printing had 400,000 copies, and it has been translated into 46 languages. It has spent more than 85 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and there are now more than 4.5 million copies in print in the U.S. alone. Despite speculation that the book would be made into a movie, Pausch had denied these rumors, stating that "there's a reason to do the book, but if it's telling the story of the lecture in the medium of film, we already have that."
Media coverage
Pausch was named "Person of the Week" on ABC's World News with Charles GibsonWorld News with Charles Gibson
ABC World News is the flagship daily evening program of ABC News, the news division of the American Broadcasting Company television network in the United States. Currently, the weekday editions are anchored by Diane Sawyer and the weekend editions are anchored by David Muir. The program has been...
on September 21, 2007. His "Last Lecture" attracted wide attention from the international media, became an Internet hit, and was viewed over a million times in the first month after its delivery. On October 22, 2007, Pausch appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show is an American syndicated talk show hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey. It ran nationally for 25 seasons beginning in 1986, before concluding in 2011. It is the highest-rated talk show in American television history....
where he discussed his situation and summarized his "Last Lecture". On October 6, 2007, Pausch joined the Pittsburgh Steelers
Pittsburgh Steelers
The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional football team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The team currently belongs to the North Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League . Founded in , the Steelers are the oldest franchise in the AFC...
for the day during their regular practice, after the organization learned that one of his childhood dreams mentioned in his "Last Lecture" was to play in the NFL.
On April 9, 2008, the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
network aired an hour long Diane Sawyer feature on Pausch titled "The Last Lecture: A Love Story For Your Life". On July 29, 2008, ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
aired a follow up to the Last Lecture special, remembering Pausch and his famous lecture.
Other lectures and appearances
Pausch gave a lecture about time managementTime management
Time management is the act or process of exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase efficiency or productivity. Time management may be aided by a range of skills, tools, and techniques used to manage time when accomplishing specific...
on November 27, 2007 at the University of Virginia, to an audience of over 850 people. In March 2008, Pausch appeared in a public service announcement video and testified before Congress in support of cancer research. On May 18, 2008, Pausch made a surprise return appearance at Carnegie Mellon, giving a speech at the commencement ceremony, as well as attending the School of Computer Science's diploma ceremony, and on May 19 Pausch appeared on the Good Morning America show. His lecture, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams was a lecture given by Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor Randy Pausch on September 18, 2007 that received a large amount of media coverage, and was the base for The Last Lecture, a New York Times best-selling book co-authored with Wall...
", was nominated at the 2007 YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
Video Awards.
A devoted Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
fan, Pausch was invited by film director J. J. Abrams
J. J. Abrams
Jeffrey Jacob "J. J." Abrams is an American film and television producer, screenwriter, director, actor, and composer. He wrote and produced feature films before co-creating the television series Felicity...
to film a role in Star Trek. Abrams heard of Pausch's condition and sent a personal e-mail inviting Pausch to the set. Pausch accepted and traveled to Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
to shoot his scene. In addition to appearing in the film, he also has a line of dialogue
Dialogue
Dialogue is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people....
at the beginning of the film ("Captain, we have visual.") and donated the $217.06 paycheck to charity.
Honors
- The Pittsburgh City Council declared November 19, 2007 to be "Dr. Randy Pausch Day".
- In May 2008, Pausch was listed by TimeTime (magazine)Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
as one of the World's Top-100 Most Influential PeopleTime 100Time 100 is an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, as assembled by Time. First published in 1999 as a result of a debate among several academics, the list has become an annual event.-History and format:...
. - Randy was named Pittsburgher of the Year 2008.
- On May 30, 2008, Randy received a letter from then President George W. BushGeorge W. BushGeorge Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
thanking him for his commitment to the Nation's youth. - On February 4, 2009, The Walt Disney Company dedicated a tribute plaque at Walt Disney World near the "Mad Tea Party" attraction with a quote by Randy that reads "Be good at something; It makes you valuable ... Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome."
- The Walt Disney Company also created the Disney Memorial Pausch Fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University, which will support two graduate students.
- Per Jared CohonJared CohonJared Leigh Cohon is the eighth President of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology,...
's announcement on the day of the Last Lecture, a raised pedestrian bridge at CMUCarnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
that connects the Gates Computer Science building and the Purnell Center for the Arts is named after Pausch, symbolizing the way he linked the two disciplines.
Other publications
- Adding input and output to the transactional model (Research paper, CMU), 1988
External links
- Randy Pausch's Home Page at Carnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon UniversityCarnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
- News about Randy Pausch at the University of VirginiaUniversity of VirginiaThe University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
- Randy Pausch's Publications on Google ScholarGoogle ScholarGoogle Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online journals of Europe and America's largest...
Videos:
- The last lecture of Randy Pausch at Youtube
- The last lecture of Randy Pausch at iTunes U
- "Time Management" by Randy Pausch, November 2007 at Google VideoGoogle VideoGoogle Videos is a video search engine, and formerly a free video sharing website, from Google Inc. Before removing user-uploaded content, the service allowed selected videos to be remotely embedded on other websites and provided the necessary HTML code alongside the media, similar to YouTube...
(presentation slides) - Randy Pausch addressing the CMU 2008 graduating class
- Randy Pausch on Good Morning America, May 19, 2008
- An Interview with Steve Seabolt about Randy Pausch - video audio (mp3) with John Ortberg at Menlo Park Presbyterian ChurchMenlo Park Presbyterian ChurchMenlo Park Presbyterian Church, or MPPC, is an evangelical church in Menlo Park, California. The church was officially organized November 30, 1873. Its congregation had over 4,500 members in 2007...
on September 12, 2008 - Randy Pausch's five second Star Trek cameo