Hamakoom y’nachem ot’chem. Deepest condolensces on the loss of your beloved son and brother.
–Sam Wineburg, PSE Professor
Stanford
Deedee Perez-Granados, PSE Professor
I am deeply saddened that we have lost Amir, a bright, warm person with so much promise. Amir touched our lives in many positive ways during his brief time with us. We will miss him. Our sadness, however, cannot compare to your grief. I send you my heartfelt condolences at this very difficult time, and I hope that you find peace and healing. Take care.
–Deedee Perez-Granados, PSE Professor
Marcela Muniz, SUSE doctoral student
It should be no surprise to those who knew Amir longer than I did that he quickly made an impression upon his arrival at Stanford. I met Amir in September as a fellow 1st year doctoral student in the School of Education, and although I only knew him for six months, I can only think of him endearingly. He was so eager to learn about the new people around him at Stanford and truly reached out to the members of our education school community. I had many wonderful conversations with him on things intellectual and not-so-intellectual, and whether we were sharing food at the campus international food festival or sparring off at our weekly trivia night, Amir was always so much fun to spend time with. Above all, Amir was a caring, giving soul…. a wonderful human being that I will miss dearly.
–Marcela Muniz, SUSE doctoral student
Robb Lindgren, LSTD doctoral student, Stanford University
Dear Lopatin family –
Please accept my most sincere and deepest sympathies for your loss. Amir is a friend and fellow PhD student of mine at Stanford, and I can say without hesitation that his contributions to our community will be missed immensely. I took several courses this year with Amir, and you could always count on him to make a strong impression–he was more willing than anyone else to question or challenge the ideas that were presented to him. I really respected him for that. Amir and I also worked on the same project for our research appointments, and so I had the opportunity to see the results of several of his projects and assignment. Amir was a very talented programmer, and a real visionary when it came to ways in which technology could be used to enhance education. The close proximity of our workspaces meant that Amir and I saw quite a bit of each other, even late at night and on the weekends. I grew quite fond of his sharp humor and the fact that he always walked around with a mischievous smile on his face–even if he didn’t know people were watching him. He took great pleasure in the social events that our first-year cohort of students participated in, and he seemed to establish many friendships in a relatively short period of time. We are all very saddened and distraught by this news. I hope that you will take some comfort in knowing that there is a great number of people on this side of the country that will miss Amir greatly, and that he will be remembered fondly for a long time to come.
–Robb Lindgren, LSTD doctoral student
Brigid Barron, LSTD Professor
I only had a few chances to talk with Amir but each conversation conveyed the same impression – that he had a gifted mind and generous spirit. One conversation took place after I gave a talk about some of my research on computer science courses for high school students. He immediately wanted to join the project and his visible excitement was contagious – I even got more excited about what I was doing. Another time he was trying to track down the sources of a research finding and asking everyone in sight, relentless in his pursuit of an answer. Amir shared his passion to learn, to understand, and to contribute from the moment he arrived and I am grateful to have known him even for a short time. Amir will be greatly missed by his fellow students and faculty at Stanford. Our hearts are with his family.
–Brigid Barron, LSTD Professor
Daniel Schwartz, LSTD Professor, Stanford University
Amir was a wonderful student. Over the past months, I made a point of talking with him as much as possible. I learned from his many questions and gentle humor. After each class, he would keep me company as I walked back to my office. He always had insightful questions — sometimes challenges to what he had just learned, sometimes questions cloaked as assertions, and sometimes just questions. I can only imagine Amir during the family’s dinner-table conversations! One might have thought him naive with all the questions, but this would be wrong. It was intellectual integrity and courage… Amir wanted to understand an idea to its very roots. As a scholar, I will miss the profound contributions he would have made, and as a colleague, I will miss the thoughtful care and joy he brought to any exchange of ideas. My deepest sympathies.
–Daniel Schwartz, LSTD Professor
Roy Pea, LSTD Professor and Advisor, DIVER Project director, Stanford University
I miss Amir profoundly. I was really enthused about his intellectual interests and so happy when he joined us at Stanford. He was my student, in his first year, and he had already become so esconced here in research projects, plans for new studies and software systems, our DIVER project. His wit was ever present, his intellectual passions sparked great discussions. His constant quizzicalness was so refreshing, he always wanted to get to the heart of a matter, question assumptions, to deeply understand what it was he was thinking about. He had a remarkably individual way of slightly turning his head and asking a question with his eyes before he even spoke. He and I had many talks about where he might best focus his intense energies of inquiry – just a few of his many considered topics were children learning to program with robots, medical education using scientific visualizations, improving studying with multimedia note taking and search technologies, fostering meta-cognition with software hints, and most recently, how one could create information visualizations of many different people’s pathways in analyzing video records with creative new techniques he was developing. He was going to change the world and make it a better place with computing. I had no doubt he would. I was honored to help him see his way to new literatures, his expanding ideas, and his ambitious plans . Amir, Amir, we will miss you so badly. Your future was so bright and you leave us with such an empty space.
— Roy Pea, LSTD Professor and Advisor, DIVER Project director
Joe Rosen, Lead Programmer on Diver Project
It feels like I have known Amir much longer than the school year we’ve been working together. We come from similar backgrounds (both from the East Coast, both from Jewish families, both interested in computers and programming, etc.) and seemed to have an immediate sense of shared experience and familiarity with each other. (I will never forget Amir inviting me one Friday evening after work to a Shabbat dinner on campus, I hadn’t before known such a Friday night gathering even existed at Stanford.)
The work Amir has done with the project was becoming increasingly original and impressive. His knowledge, curiosity, and enthusiasm about computers and computer science made him a tremendous asset to our team. I was greatly looking forward to our continued work together, our ongoing discussions, to our sharing ideas, and to learning new things from one another. Amir will be very much personally and professionally missed by all of us who have had the great pleasure of knowing and working with him at Stanford / SCIL.
–Joe Rosen, Lead Programmer on Diver Project
Emma Mercier, PSE doctoral student, Stanford University
It is incredible to realize Amir was only here for 2 quarters, he made such an impression. He worked near me and was always coming by with new ideas or questions, and recently, to drag me over to take part in the experiments he was beginning to test. He seemed happy, and to love being at Stanford and the things he was learning, and was always seeking more knowledge and answers. He was also becoming a good friend, someone I argued with frequently but laughed with a lot. He approached life, learning, friendships, everything, with such enthusiasm and he gave so much to every group and discussion. I will miss him.
–Emma Mercier, PSE doctoral student
Mike Mills, Design Director on Diver project, Stanford University
My workspace is right next to Amir’s so we would often chat about work and life. I loved his curiosity and intensity about all things. He was always asking me to take a look at new breakthroughs in his program or to show me an article that excited him. His visualization work on Diver was, I believe, truly pioneering and the progress he was making was inspiring. (I also like to think I had some influence on his starting to wear a baseball cap to our Diver meetings!) I will miss Amir as will everyone who got to know him at Stanford.
–Mike Mills, Design Director on Diver project