2014 deaths

M._Rainer_Lepsius

M. Rainer Lepsius (8 May 1928 – 2 October 2014) was a German sociologist. A particular interest was in the work of Max Weber: he was prominent among the co-compilers of the (eventually) 47 volume edition of the Complete Works of Weber.

Bill_Ash

William Franklin Ash MBE (30 November 1917 – 26 April 2014) was an American-born British writer, broadcaster and Marxist, who served as a fighter pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. He was shot down, made a prisoner of war, and was noted as an escaper.

G._Thompson_Brown

G. Thompson "Tommy" Brown (April 30, 1921 - January 21, 2014) was the Professor Emeritus of World Christianity at Columbia Theological Seminary, a missionary, author, and the Director of the Division of International Mission for the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS). He spent much of his life in Korea focusing on strengthening the Presbyterian Church there. His daughter is Mary Brown Bullock, who was President of Agnes Scott College and a foundation executive in developing exchange with China.

Silvio_Zavala

Silvio Arturo Zavala Vallado (February 7, 1909 – December 4, 2014) was a Mexican historian who was considered to be a pioneer in law history studies and Mexico’s institutions.

Janet_Gray_Hayes

Janet Gray Hayes (July 12, 1926 – April 21, 2014) was the 60th mayor of San Jose, California, elected to two consecutive, four-year terms from 1975 to 1983. She was both the first woman to be elected mayor San Jose, and the first woman elected mayor of a major U.S. city with a population of more than 500,000 people.Born in Rushville, Indiana, Hayes went to University of Chicago and then received her bachelor's degree from Indiana University. In 1956, Hayes and her husband moved to San Jose, California where her husband practiced medicine.
Hayes was elected to the San Jose City Council in 1971 In 1973, she was voted by the city council to serve as the city's vice mayor, becoming the first woman to hold that position. In 1974, she was elected mayor of the city. She was reelected in 1978. She was a Democrat and campaigned as an environmentalist and wanted to fight Urban sprawl in San Jose.She died of a stroke on April 26, 2014, in Saratoga, California.

Robert_L._Letsinger

Robert Lewis Letsinger (July 31, 1921 – May 26, 2014) was an American biochemist and was a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University. He was best known for his research and development of chemical synthesis of DNA.

Nancy_Teeters

Nancy Hays Teeters (July 29, 1930 – November 17, 2014) was an American economist and corporate executive who served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors from 1978 to 1984. A member of the Democratic Party, Teeters was the first woman to sit on the Board. She was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to fill out the remainder of the term of Arthur F. Burns, a former chairman of the Fed. Teeters was known for her public statements in which she dissented from the mainstream opinion of the Board and Chairman Paul Volcker.

James_Freeman_Gilbert

James Freeman Gilbert (August 9, 1931 – August 15, 2014) was an American geophysicist, best known for his work with George E. Backus on inverting geophysical data, and also for his role in establishing an international network of long-period seismometers.Gilbert was born in Vincennes, Indiana. A 1949 graduate of Lawrenceburg High School (Kentucky), his undergraduate and graduate degrees were earned from MIT (B.S., 1953, and Ph.D. in geophysics, 1956), and he continued at MIT as a postdoctoral fellow until 1957, when he moved to the University of California, Los Angeles. At UCLA he was an assistant, then associate, professor, but left to take an appointment as
a senior researcher at Texas Instruments. In 1961, he was recruited by Walter Munk to the Institute of Geophysics and
Planetary Physics (IGPP) at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, also becoming a professor of geophysics at the University of California, San Diego. He remained at UCSD through the remainder of his career, and became an emeritus professor.In his later years, Gilbert enjoyed extensive world travel with his wife, Sally Gilbert. He died due to complications resulting from a car accident in Southern Oregon on August 15, 2014. He was 83 years old.