InterActions serves as core research component in the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. In an effort to be of service to this community, we would like to take the opportunity to recognize those who dedicated their lives to activism and scholarly pursuits in the academy and in the community, and who have tragically and recently passed away. We do so to pay tribute to their academic work, their passion, and their service. Students with such multi-disciplinary talents truly embody the potential of the next generation of up and coming academics.

As we grieve the loss of their life, we also want to celebrate their accomplishments, and have included a brief description of their lives and work, which we invite you to explore through the remembrances and links below.

InterActions Editors

Susana Maria Halpine Yolanda Retter

On Tuesday November 6th Susana Yolanda Retter, an activist, librarian, Maria Halpine died unexpectedly leaving a archivist, and author, best known for raising great void in the many people whose lives she the visibility of lesbians and people of color, touched. Susana’s rare combination of died at her home in Van Nuys on August 18, talents–biochemist, professional artist and 2007. She was 59. For the past four years, educational researcher–grew out of an Retter was Head Librarian/ Archivist at the insatiable desire to explore life, to understand UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, but how things were inter-connected, and then to she was also an integral member of the impart that knowledge to others. Department of Information Studies, where she In the 1980s she worked at the Protein ably filled multiple roles as a student pursuing Analysis Facility in the Howard Hughes additional certification, an activist working on Medical Institute at Columbia University behalf of students, an adjunct professor, and a under Nobel laureate Eric Kandel. At the conscience- and consciousness-raising force. facility, Susana pioneered the use of protein Among her many accomplishments— analyzers and DNA synthesizers. She went on too many to name here—Yolanda was to transfer this state-of-the-art bio-technology strumental in organizing lesbian history to art conservation and history research under repositories at UCLA, USC, and in West the auspices of a Mellon Fellowship at the Hollywood. She co-edited and co-wrote three National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. books: Queers in Space (1997), Gay and Susana was also an artist, exhibiting her Lesbian Rights in the (2003), oil paintings in New York City, Washington, and Great Events from History: Gay, Lesbian, DC, Southern and greater Boston Bisexual and Transgender Events, 1848-2006 area galleries. She received an artist-in- (2007). residence grant at the Milay Colony for the Yolanda was born in New Haven, Arts. Her work won several “Best of Show” in 1947. She attended Pitzer awards and was reviewed in the Washington College in Claremont in 1966. During the Post and the New York Times. 1980s, she earned master's degrees in library Her pursuits in science and art came science and social work from UCLA and together in her passionate commitment to the thereafter a doctorate from the University of education of future scientists and artists. New Mexico in American studies. Her When she moved to in 1996 she dissertation was titled, On the Side of Angels: began developing award-winning interactive Lesbian Activism in Los Angeles, 1970-1990. educational animations, videos, CD-ROM's In 1978, Yolanda directed a program to and Websites for publishers Scholastic and W. address the needs of lesbians at the Los H. Freeman. Her TV piece for UNICEF on a Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center, then the Gay child's right to proper nutrition and healthcare Community Services Center. In 1988, she was presented at the Annecy International appeared, along with three other lesbian Animation Festival. separatists, on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Susana argued passionately that science voicing the belief that lesbians can empower and art were closely coupled historically. She themselves without men. Between 1989 and believed that an understanding of science and 1991, Retter managed the Los Angeles Public technology benefited from one’s artistic Library Chicano Resource Collection, where ability to envision, visualize and represent she created the first Latino biography scientific concepts. Accordingly, she believed database. that the separation of science from art was a Throughout her life, Retter devoted her recent and serious flaw in the modern energies to the empowerment of women and curricula. To address that flaw, Susana minorities. After college, she worked as a conducted workshops at the Smithsonian, the prison guard at the California Institution for American Chemical Society and schools in Women in Corona and managed a halfway the Los Angeles area. These workshops house for displaced women in Los Angeles. evolved and cohered in 2001 when she During the 1970s, she helped organize the developed STArt!, a program designed to lesbian liberation movement, becoming teach science through art and help students involved in groups such as Latin American and teachers address the new California Lesbians of Los Angeles and Connexxus Science Standards. She received three Women's Center/Centro de Mujeres. consecutive Artist-In-Residence grants from Her often confrontational, abrasive the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs style and radical stances earned her the Department to implement the STArt! program nickname, "Yolanda the Terrible," but she in LAUSD schools. will be sorely missed. We in particular shall Her unique blend of talents allowed her remember her as an indefatigable friend to to publish on a variety of seemingly disparate InterActions: a source of invaluable and topics such as amino acid analysis and high- unwavering support for its authors and editors pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC), art and the embodiment of its very spirit. conservation and science visualization, and education. At the time of her death, she was Patrick Keilty working on several articles that argued PhD student in Information Studies persuasively, with empirical evidence from UCLA the STArt! Program, that science education should start early in grade school. 1Keilty, P. (2006). LGBT and Information Susana spent her life giving unselfishly Studies: The Library and Archive OUTreach of her time. She was a fixture in local Symposium at UCLA; InterActions: UCLA environmental causes, always fighting large Journal of Education and Information Studies. institutions for a better environment or Vol 3. Issue 1, Article 6 http://repositories.cdlib.org/gseis.interactions/vol3/ educating the young about the environment iss1/art6 they were inheriting. In dogged and loving pursuit of her many interests, Susana touched Yolanda Retter served as a panelist at the many lives, imparting her creativity, intellect Library and Archive OUTreach Symposium at and spirit to future generations. UCLA on November 17, 2006.

Stacy Marsella, PhD For video and audio clips from the event: USC Information Sciences Institute Yolanda Retter