My colleague Ellery Eells died this week. His health had been deteriorating for some time, and last Friday he slipped into a coma from which he did not recover.
When I came to Madison I knew Ellery’s work just well enough to be entirely intimidated by it — the combination of technical complexity with real philosophical depth was unnerving. But as a person he was whatever the reverse is of intimidating: kind, gentle, and shy. A sad loss for my department and for the profession, but most of all our hearts go out to his wife, Joanne, and his children.