My Favorite Professor

Dr. Ron Ayres passed away earlier this month. Ron was among the top three teachers I was fortunate enough to take classes from at Caltech, and a good friend. The Los Angeles Times carried the notice last week, and my good friend and classmate Rod Van Meter has a copy of it on his blog.

Ron's work was influential in the early development of silicon compilation, and he helped create the MOSIS service to provide foundry services to individuals, research groups, and small companies. He was also a cellist, a beach bum, and a good friend.

As Rod notes, Ron was the very first person to receive a PhD in Computer Science from Caltech.

Ron's sense of humor was unique: When I first met him in about 1986, he was driving a Renault Le Car, with a vanity license plate that read LA CDR. Extra credit if you can name the language in which this was funny...

Ron will be sorely missed by all of us whose lives he touched.