P E O P L E

Spotlight

Name: Sara Miller.
Position: Assistant to the directors of the Third World Center and Community House. Working with minority student organizations in the planning and execution of programming for various lectures and social events. Coordinating reservations for the use of the facilities, which include meeting rooms and a lecture hall.
Quote: "I enjoy working with students and being exposed to different social and ethnic backgrounds."
Other interests: Spending time with her children, reading and listening to jazz.

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Well-known mathematician dies

Donald Spencer, a prize-winning mathematician who was a Princeton faculty member for 23 years, died Dec. 23 in Durango, Colo. He was 89.
    Spencer was well known for developing the modern theory of deformation of complex structures with colleague Kunihiko Kodaira of the Institute for Advanced Study. That research has been important in such fields as geometry and mathematical physics.
    He earned bachelor's degrees from the University of Colorado and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University. He taught at MIT and at Stanford University before joining the Princeton faculty in 1953.
    Spencer again taught at Stanford from 1963 to 1968, but returned to Princeton for 10 years until he was granted emeritus status as the Henry Burchard Fine Professor of Mathematics. He retired in his native Colorado, where he was an avid environmentalist and outdoorsman.
    The joint recipient with A.C. Schaeffer of the American Mathematical Society's Bocher Memorial Prize in 1948, Spencer was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1961 and was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1967.
    He was awarded the National Science Foundation's National Medal of Science in 1989 "for his original and insightful research that has had a profound impact on 20th-century mathematics, and for his role as an inspiring teacher to generations of American mathematicians." He wrote numerous articles for academic journals and also served on editorial boards for several of those publications.
    Survivors include his daughter, Marianne Pearlman of Columbia, Md., and his son, Donald Spencer Jr. of Boston.

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Staff obituary

Michael Matyis, former supervisor of air conditioning and refrigeration in grounds and building maintenance, died Nov. 12 at his home in Falls Township, Pa. He was 69.
    Matyis retired from the University in 1995 after 26 years of service. He was a member of the Morrisville-Fairless Hills Elks Lodge, the Loyal Order of the Moose Lodge of Mount Holly and Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church of Morrisville. He also enjoyed woodworking, building and flying model airplanes and gardening.
    Survivors include his wife, Lorraine; a son, David, of Austin, Texas; and two daughters, Diane Young of Newburg, Pa., and Renee Weist of Fairless Hills, Pa. Memorial contributions may be made to the Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church, 201 N. Pennsylvania Ave., Morrisville, PA 19067.