GRAD STUDENT DIES OVER BREAK IN CAR ACCIDENT
By Michael Miller
March 30, 2004
First-year School of Education graduate student Amir Lopatin died last Thursday in a car accident near Las Vegas at the age of 28. Lopatin had just begun a doctoral degree in the Learning Sciences and Technology Design program.
Friends and acquaintances said Amir was a smart, inquisitive student and would be missed as much for his approach to life as for his educational contributions.
“He was extremely multidisciplinary,” said his brother Uri Lopatin. “For example, he was a computer genius who loved outdoor things.”
Amir was active in the Orthodox Jewish community at Stanford and was quickly making friends in his first few months on campus.
“He was a very bright, intensive person, and extremely friendly,” said Rabbi Joey Felsen, who works with Hillel. “He also liked to spend time with his thoughts.”
“The Orthodox Jewish community at Stanford is small,” Felsen added. “For us it is a very big loss.”
Amir grew up in Englewood, New Jersey, and completed a computer science degree at Brown University, where he was on the Ultimate Frisbee team. Later, while he was working in New York City, Amir founded the New York City Public Ultimate League, which he ran until coming out to Stanford.
“The league was my brother’s brainchild,” Uri said.
Just beginning to find his place at Stanford, Amir had already impressed professors with his intelligence and incisive questions.
“He had great enthusiasm, great intellectual integrity,” said Assoc. Prof. Dan Schwartz, who taught Amir. “He was bold to state his opinion and you always learned more when you talked to him.”
Amir had already made an impact on colleagues in his small doctoral program of about 15 students.
“I’m going to miss that he’s a straight-shooter,” said master’s student Paula Wellings. “He would tell you exactly what he’s thinking … and he was sweet.”
Amir was taking advantage of the sunny weather, driving back from Las Vegas with childhood friend Jonathan Wilson from New Jersey when his new Honda Element flipped. Wilson was in critical but stable condition at University Medical Center in Las Vegas.
“He said [Stanford] was one of the most beautiful places he’d ever seen,” said Joe Rosen, a research scientist who worked with Amir. “He was very happy here.”
“Not only will I miss him at a personal level, but at a professional level he will be greatly missed,” Rosen also said. “I’ve been doing this for 25 years and there were things I could learn from Amir.”
Amir had gone back to school to try to apply technology to learning, moving beyond the design and programming he had pursued in private industry.
“He wanted to help find ways of helping people learn,” said Uri. “He was enamored by the concept of education.”
A funeral for Amir took place on Sunday in Englewood, and a memorial gathering was held last night at Stanford. His family has set up a Web site at www.amirlopatin.com, which will have information about a foundation to be set up in his memory.
Amir is survived by his mother Sara, his older sister Shoshana and his older brother Uri.