CLASSMATE BIOGRAPHIES 38 David Jeffrey Abeshouse Course: VIII Tell us about your recollections of your student years at MIT: I lived in Student House, which is essentially on the B.U. campus. If I recall correctly, it was a mile walk to MIT. That walk, in all kinds of weather, is one of my strongest, if not favorable, memories of my years there. Unless something unusual happened, I made the round trip just once a day. Student House is near Kenmore Square and Fenway Park. The gates to Fenway would open in the sixth inning then, and there were mostly afternoon games, so we would go up to the park occasionally to see, for free, the last three innings. We saw Ted Williams regularly. Student House was also next to the Charles, and it was fun to go down near the river in pleasant weather. I struggled to survive academically, but I did it. I don't remember the name of the professor who lectured our freshman chemistry course, but he spoke in a monotone, and I fell asleep practically every time. I finally went to a different lecture section. I have a poor sense of direction and was regularly lost around the campus and often rushing to get to class. Once in my sophomore year I was rushing and rounded a corner and almost flattened Norbert Wiener. He had a large abdomen, and, from my point of view, the collision was soft. The work on my senior paper was done in building 20. That was a fine place to spend a lot of time. My advisor was W. B. Nottingham. A group of his students got him a bottle of wine for a present once. (He had a refrigerator in the lab, but it had nothing to do with the work he led. It was for his wine.) When he got the bottle, in the nicest possible way he described how you look at a wine bottle and wine to tell if it was good, and our bottle really wasn't up to his standards but he was grateful. He had a farm, I think in Keene, NH, and he built his own rope tow, and we did some skiing there. I recall a "riot" once, but that was caused by the Beta house hanging Castro in effigy, and our president knows more about it than I do. Tell us about your professional life and experiences since you graduated from MIT: After college I went to work at Douglas Aircraft and worked on the development of the S-4 and S-4B stages of the Saturn rocket in the Apollo program for a few years. I then went to graduate school at Boston University and received a Master's and a Ph.D. degree in experimental low temperature physics. My thesis work was done as a visiting scientist at the Francis Bitter National Magnet Lab at MIT. I then taught one semester at Clark University and one semester at Boston University, all the while looking for a more permanent position. I got a one year appointment in the accelerator department at Brookhaven. After that, I finally found a job at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. The work involved assessing the reliability, accuracy, and performance of the US Navy's submarine launched ballistic missiles, that is, the Polaris, the Poseidon, the Trident I and Trident II missiles. Since it was classified, I couldn't bring it home with me, and suddenly had free time. While it was not exactly what I would have preferred, it was interesting, the people and the facility were great, and so I stayed. I occasionally taught in the Hopkins night school there. I retired in 2005. Tell us about yourself and family and interests over the past 50 years: I met my future wife while I was in graduate school. We married in November, 1965, on Thanksgiving weekend. We have three children, who have produced 6 wonderful grandchildren. Our children are in PA, UT,and RI, while we are in MD. I wish they were closer. I took up skiing while an undergraduate and try to get a week of skiing in every year. We just got back from a week at Loon Mountain in NH, which had good snow. I took up SCUBA diving in my late 40s and still occasionally do some diving. We enjoy traveling, and in the last few years have been to Mexico, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Maine, Florida, Missouri, and probably some other places I don't recall. We have been and continue to be very active in the life of our synagogue. After I retired, I planned to get caught up on my reading, but still 39 haven't succeeded. As I suspect with most people who have reached our age, we have had our share of health problems, but right now we are enjoying good health. Judith Brainard Allik Course: XIII Tell us about your recollections of your student years at MIT: We "girls" lived on Bay State Road in Boston our freshman year. My most vivid memories were of trekking across the Mass Ave bridge in the cold and snow. My sophomore year I lived in an apartment in Copley Square so my "commuting" nightmares lived on. Junior and senior years I "graduated" to Bexley Hall so no more commute. The year after I graduated the women's dorm was opened - timing is everything in life! Being the only course XIII student, male or female, in the class of '62 my senior courses were either one on one with my professors or with Navy grad students. Back then course XIII students followed the course II curriculum in the sophomore year, and course I curriculum for the junior year. My most enjoyable extracurricular activity was playing in the concert band under John Corley. We played some very interesting and challenging original works. We even went on tour during semester break. The biggest contribution my MIT education made to my career was my exposure to computers in their infancy and the ability to solve problems - no matter what kind of problems. Tell us about your professional life and experiences since you graduated from MIT: Three days after graduation I started work as a naval architect with General Dynamics/Electric Boat Division. Working in R&D, I was able to do some very interesting work with computers and submarine design. Few engineers had much computer experience in the early 1960's, and especially few naval architects. In the late 60's I worked in highway design for the State of Delaware as well as a brief stint rescuing Delaware's business computer system at the request of the governor. In the 1970's I lived in New Jersey, did a pre-med, and applied to medical school only to find out I was "over the hill" and needed straight A's from MIT to get in. Needless to say I didn't make it! In 1979 I moved back to Connecticut with my son and daughter. I went to work for Analysis and Technology (a Navy sub- contractor) where I met my future husband. We worked together until he went to another company that did not allow husband-wife teams and I went back to work at Electric Boat. I got a Masters in Biomedical Engineering and worked on AI applications to submarine combat systems until retirement. Tell us about yourself and family and interests over the past 50 years: Three months after graduation I married Joe Wyatt. My son was born in 1965 and my daughter in 1967. We moved to Wilmington, Delaware in 1967 and then to Dover, Delaware two years later. In the 1970's we moved to New Jersey. This was a slow time for engineers so I did my pre-med, failed to get in to medical school, and ended up in grad school at Rutgers studying Microbiology. Eventually, Joe and I got divorced and I moved back to Connecticut with my son and daughter. Here I met Henno Allik, worked with him on finite element code development, and eventually married him! Henno and I had been married 21 years when he passed away in 2002. We enjoyed working together professionally, as well as designing and building our home, and traveling to Europe and Australia. Henno was born in Estonia and I was lucky to be with him on his first visit to his homeland since his family escaped in 1944. This first 40 visit was in 1991, right after Estonia declared independence from the USSR and the Soviet Union was dissolved. We visited Estonia every year after that. Since Henno's death, I have continued the tradition of visiting his relatives every year. It has been quite an education watching the changes in this little country over the last 20 years. I now have five incredible grandchildren and I keep very busy traveling, gardening and working on my house. I think my biggest contribution to the future is my family. I have been very lucky! Jose R. Alonso Course: VIII Tell us about your recollections of your student years at MIT: As a totally lost incoming Freshman, Freddy Fassett provided tremendous support and guidance during my first days. Wonderful man! The arduous academic rigors, with the Friday quizzes, were smoothed by the great group of classmates at East Campus, a large number of us all in Course VIII, helping each other with new concepts, difficult homework problems, quiz preparation... and letting off steam. Ah those water fights, water-balloon catapults, "mariahs" made from surgical tubing.