"Last Lecture" CS Professor, Randy Paunsch Dies Aged 47

Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon Computer Science Professor who became known for his “Last Lecture” talk has passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Pausch was the creator of Alice, the software geared towards helping kids learn how to program and a Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design at CMU.

Pausch received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Brown and his Ph.D. in CS from CMU. He co-founded the CMU Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) and started and taught the Building Virtual Worlds course.

In August 2006, Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He underwent aggressive treatment which included both experimental chemotherapy and Whipple procedure surgery (the same procedure that cured Steve Jobs when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer). In August of last year, Pausch was told the cancer had spread to both his liver and spleen and was terminal.

Randy was initially given three to six months to live and in September 2007, gave his “Last Lecture” at CMU on "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." The speech was filmed and later posted on the internet.

Pausch’s Last Lecture garnered an overwhelming amount of media coverage and the few childhood dreams he did not achieve, were fulfilled with the help of others. Randy played with the Pittsburgh Steelers for a day during their regular practice (he’d wanted to play in the NFL as a child) and was invited to star in the latest Star Trek movie by director J.J. Abrams. His dream was actually to be Captain Kirk, however a line of dialogue in the upcoming movie was no doubt more than enough for the long time Star Trek fan.

He worked briefly (during sabbaticals from CMU) at Walt Disney Imagineering and Electronic Arts (EA).

Pausch is survived by his wife Jai and their three children, Dylan, Logan, and Chloe (aged six, four and two respectively).

Check out the Last Lecture on YouTube.