Roger, our brilliant and visionary colleague, died last month. He had fought back from the ravages of a stroke some three-and-a-half years before then. A tough guy and a dedicated scientist to the end, he was completing old projects and starting on new ones. It was as if a thirst for knowledge was an elixir that helped to keep him going.

The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) is nothing if not a collaborative environment, and I had the good fortune to join Roger on a few projects. Roger was closely involved in the planning and interpretation of experiments and, despite jokes about the “minimal publishable unit,” he tirelessly supported thoroughness. He was efficient with his time and could be quite abrupt. Yet, away from UCSD, on a trip somewhere with emotional defenses weakened by jet lag, Roger would open up and talk. About growing up in New York and working on projects with his dad. About clearing a seeming infinity of rocks from the yard of his family's then new home in New Jersey. About his days at Cambridge. And, touchingly, about meeting Wendy, his wife, at a Christmas party. But the proverbial 'walk in the woods' generally avoided gossip and eventually yielded to discussions on science.

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