March/April 2011

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Kenneth G. Englar, retired engineer, Newport Beach, Calif., on March 2, 2010. Englar entered with the Class of 1944 but earned a B.S. in 1943 from the Engineering School. He was born on June 19, 1923, in New York City. During WWII, Englar was drafted into the Army and assigned to help purify plutonium for the top-secret Manhattan Project at Los Alamos, N.M. After the war, he moved to California to join the burgeoning aerospace industry. Englar helped design airplanes, satellites, space stations and rockets for 39 years at McDonnell Douglas. His final project for McDonnell Douglas was the successful design, creation and test launch of a missile interception for the Strategic Defense Initiative. After retirement, Englar served for several years on a NASA safety commission and traveled the world as an aerospace consultant. He received a NASA Public Service medal. Englar is survived by his wife of 58 years, Jane; children, Bruce, Russell, Barbara and Janet; eight grandchildren; and a sister. Memorial contributions may be made to KUSC or the Pacific Chorale.

Donald W. Johnson, radiologist, Bloomfield, Conn., on May 7, 2010. Johnson was born in Hartford, Conn., on January 3, 1923, and grew up on Staten Island. After earning an M.D. from P&S in 1948, he did his internship and residency at Presbyterian Hospital. From 1952–54, Johnson served in the Air Force as radiologist at MacDill AFB in Tampa, Fla. In 1955, he joined the radiology staff at Presbyterian, leaving in 1961 to join a group in private practice at Hartford Hospital. In 1963, Johnson and three other young radiologists formed Jefferson X-Ray Group, a practice that now numbers more than 40. A longtime member of the Universalist Church of West Hartford, Johnson served on the Boards of Education and Finance, chaired the Scholarship Committee and taught in the church school for 31 years. Together with his wife, Dorothy, whom he met at P&S, he received the Distinguished Service award in 1990. Johnson retired in 1987. He enjoyed playing the piano and organ, hiking, skiing, and traveling with his family. He is survived by his wife and sons, Richard and Theodore, and their wives. Memorial contributions may be made to Hartford Hospital Development Fund, 80 Seymour St., Box 5037, Hartford, CT 06102; or National Parkinson Foundation, 1501 N.W. 9th Ave./Bob Hope Rd., Miami, FL 33136-1494.

Theodore O. Prounis, attorney and management consultant, New York City, on May 22, 2010. Prounis entered with the Class of 1949 but earned a degree in 1950 from the Business School. He graduated from Stuyvesant H.S. and at Columbia was president of Sigma Nu and v.p. of the PNYX Hellenic Society. He was a founding board member of the Hellenic Studies Program at Columbia. A WWII veteran, Prounis served in the Army Air Corps, flying on B-17 and B-29 bombers. He earned a J.D. from Fordham, was a “Cold War warrior” in Washington, D.C., and received the Distinguished Service Medal. Prounis practiced law for more than 30 years and returned to being a management consultant. He was an Archon Deputatos of the Holy Ecumenical Patriarchate, had served as an officer of the Archdiocesan Council and was president of the Board of Trustees of the Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New York 1984–94. Prounis is survived by his wife, Lila ’50 GSAS; son, Othon ’83, ’86L; daughter, Amelia ’87 SIPA; and four grandchildren. Memorial contributions may be made to the Holy Trinity Cathedral or to Columbia University, Program for Hellenic Studies, Attn.: Gerry Visco, 1130 Amsterdam Ave., MC 2861, 617 Hamilton Hall, New York, NY 10027.

Marvin L. Yates, chemist, Port Angeles, Wash., on March 4, 2010. Yates was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 27, 1931, and served in the Navy during the Korean War 1952–55. He was in the Naval Reserve from 1955–77, retiring with the rank of commander. Yates earned a B.A. in chemistry and then a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from Indiana University. He was employed by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey Division, for 28 years, and worked in water quality control laboratories in Washington, D.C., Denver, and Menlo Park and Sacramento, Calif. A music aficionado, he had a special affinity for Mozart. Yates was fascinated with airplanes and air shows, especially those featuring WWII vintage aircraft. He was a 50-year emeritus member of the American Chemical Society and a longtime member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Yates is survived by his wife, Janice Adcock Yates; son, Stephen; daughters, Allison Dixon and her husband, James, and Laura Fujita and her husband, Masahiko; and two grandchildren. Memorial contributions may be made to Hospice of Clallam County, 540 E. Eighth St., Port Angeles, WA 98362 or to Northwest Parkinson’s Foundation, 400 Mercer St., Ste 401, Seattle, WA 98109.

George N. Braman, retired physician, professor, Riverdale, N.Y., on June 23, 2010. Braman was born in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn on April 30, 1937. He earned a B.A. in English and then an M.D. from SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn in 1963. Braman had practiced internal medicine for nearly 40 years, including at the New York State Department of Health and as director of quality management at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens. He returned to SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn in 1998 to teach in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health and the master of public health program and contributed to the development of the School of Public Health. For his work at SUNY, Braman was inducted into the Delta Omega Honorary Public Health Society and given the Volunteer Clinical Faculty Award. Braman was an avid reader and a poet, and his poetry was frequently featured in the Annals of Internal Medicine. He also enjoyed taking walks in his North Riverdale neighborhood. Braman is survived by his wife of 34 years, Joan ’64 Barnard; and sons, Leonard ’02 and Donald.

Joseph V. DiGiuseppe, retired deputy city solicitor, Philadelphia, on May 24, 2010. DiGiuseppe was a lifelong resident of Philadelphia. He attended St. Thomas Aquinas Parochial School and graduated from Central H.S. His College degree was in journalism, and he earned a J.D. from Temple Law School in 1989. DiGiuseppe was a former president of the Columbia Club of Philadelphia and a member of the Alumni Representative Committee. In Philadelphia, he was on the board of the Friends of the Free Library and a member of the Sons of Italy. DiGiuseppe played piano, coached in his son’s T-ball league and enjoyed hiking. He is survived by his wife, Theresa Timlin; son, Joseph Ruslan; mother, Carmella; and sister, Joanne Banecker. Memorial contributions may be made to the Friends of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Attn.: Amy Dougherty, 1901 Vine St., Philadelphia, PA 19103, libraryfriends.info.

Mildred E. “Millie” Niss, poet and web artist, North Tonawanda, N.Y., on November 29, 2009. Niss was born on May 6, 1973, and graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the College, where she was named a Rabi Scholar in Mathematics and attended two National Science Foundation summer programs in computational algebraic geometry. In her freshman year, the Association of Women in Mathematics awarded Niss Special Recognition for the Alice Shafer Prize for “outstanding achievement in mathematics so early in [her] career” for a paper, Inversion of Pascal-Like Triangles, in the Journal of Undergraduate Mathematics, Spring 1993. In 2005, Niss’ illness of many years was diagnosed as Behcets Disease, an autoimmune disease that attacks blood vessels anywhere in the body. Her treatment led to complications that left her bedridden and wheelchair-bound for the last three years of her life. Niss continued writing poetry and doing web art either alone or in collaboration with her mother, Martha Deed. Niss’ web installations, poetry and links to publications may be found at http://sporkworld.org. To view her blog, designed as a journal, visit http://sporkworld.tumblr.com.

Lisa Palladino

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