LINGUIST List 13.2936

Wed Nov 13 2002

All: Obituary: Deirdre Wheeler Hutchinson

Editor for this issue: Dina Kapetangianni <dinalinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Carol L. Tenny, Obituary: Deirdre Wheeler Hutchinson

We are very sad to inform the linguistic community of the loss of our
friend and colleague, Deirdre Wheeler Hutchinson. Deirdre passed away
of breast cancer, on Saturday November 2, 2002 at the age of 49, in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Deirdre completed her PH.D. in linguistics at the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst. She was a fine teacher, who brought
linguistics to many students, at the University of Groningen, the
University of Newhampshire-Durham, the University of Arizona, the
University of Iowa, the University of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie-Mellon
University.

She left academia in 1997 for the language technologies software
industry, accepting the position of Senior Linguist at Claritech
Corporation in Pittsburgh (now Clairvoyance Corporation). In 2001 she
became one of the original members of Queria, Inc., a software company
based in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles, joining as Principal
Linguist. She is survived by her linguist husband, Larry
G. Hutchinson, who not only joined her at the companies mentioned
above, but shared an office with her at all of them.

Deirdre was always generous with her humor and with anything she had
to share. She was courageous in her cheerfulness until the end. We in
Pittsburgh will miss our friend and colleague very, very much.

Two obituaries have appeared in the Pittsburgh newspapers and they may be
accessed online at:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/search/s_100567.html
http://www.legacy.com/PostGazette/LegacySubPage2.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonId=574454

Donations in Deirdre's memory may be made to the Nature Conservancy:
http://nature.org/joinanddonate/donate/
and Doctors Without Borders: http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/

Friends and colleagues of Deirdre are invited to send memories or
stories about Deirdre to share at a memorial service to be held in
Pittsburgh, and for a memorial webpage to be set up for her. Please
send them to Carol Tenny at: tennylinguist.org (For an alternate
address, send them to Lori Levin at: lslcs.cmu.edu.)