Edward C. Posner Memorial Fellowhip Fund

[Jim Bower]

**********************************************************

Dear Colleague,
	
	As you may be aware, last week Ed Posner was killed 
in an unfortunate bicycle accident in Pasadena.  Those of 
us who knew him well feel the loss very deeply.  However, 
Ed's  strong commitment to the communities to which he 
belonged makes his death even more unfortunate. Throughout 
his career, Ed was actively involved in academic education 
and organization.  For example, in recent years, he was the 
first chairman and principle organizer of the Neural 
Information Processing Systems (NIPS) meeting.  One of 
his many legacies to this meeting is a strong commitment to 
student travel awards.  He also spent much of the last year 
of his life working hard to establish the NIPS Foundation 
so that NIPS as well as other related meetings could be on 
sound financial and legal footing.   
	In addition to his professional activities, Ed was 
also deeply involved in educational activities at Caltech 
and JPL.  His commitment to students was legend at both 
institutions.  Ed was particularly heavily involved in the 
SURF program at Caltech through which undergraduates 
(both from Caltech and from other institutions) carry out 
independent research projects during the summer months. 
Ed was an active member of the SURF Administrative 
Committee.  He was also one of the most active SURF 
research sponsors, having served as mentor to 13 students 
since 1984. Three more students were preparing to work 
with him this summer.  In addition, Ed co-founded the 
SURFSAT satellite program in 1986.  In this program, 
successive teams of SURF students are designing, building, 
and testing a small communications satellite to support 
the research objectives of NASA's Deep Space Network.  
Since its inception, 43 students have participated in SURFSAT. 
	Ed's persistent commitment to the scientific 
education of young people stretches far and touches many. 
Just a few days prior to his death, for example, Ed had 
begun to work with the Dean of Graduate Education at 
Caltech to organize yet another educational program, in 
this case to increase the number of underrepresented 
minorities in engineering. 
        Given Ed's strong interest in science education, 
research, and students, Mrs. Posner has asked that memorial 
gifts be designated to support Caltech's SURF Program.  
It is our hope that gifts might ultimately fund an Edward C.
Posner SURF Fellowship Fund.  Once funded, the Posner SURF 
Fellowship would annually support an under-represented 
minority student for a research project in a field related 
to Ed's own professional interests.

	Those individuals, or institutions interested in 
making a contribution to the Edward C. Posner SURF 
fellowship fund in his memory should contact:  

            Dore Charbonneau 
            Director of Special Gifts 
            Development, mail code 105-40 
            Caltech
            Pasadena, CA. 91125
            818 - 356-6285


	Thank you for your interest and we hope to hear from 
you.

Carolyn Merkel
Director, SURF program

James M. Bower
Computation and Neural Systems Program-Caltech