Gaetano Boriello
The UW lost a great educator, researcher, and scholar this weekend in CSE Professor Gaetano Borriello. He succumbed to cancer on Sunday, February 1, 2015.
Others will write extensively and eloquently about his contributions to the field and the world. Gaetano was my introduction to the DUB community at the UW, when I first started teaching part-time in the Division of Design. He was a great inspiration to me, having taken the time to get involved in a project I was doing with design students that was related to his research in public transportation systems.
Having lived in Italy for a few years and learned enough Italian to be conversant, I was always trying to use that in our interactions. Curiously, he always answered me in English, though. I guess I wasn’t as conversant as I thought, or maybe my accent was like fingernails on a chalkboard to his ears. He was born in Italy, but his English was flawless and unaccented whatsoever. Like so many Italians, he was kind enough to appreciate my efforts and never said anything about them. On the contrary, in fact, especially when others were around.
And curiously also, it was only as he got sicker that I noticed him replying to my butchered Italian in Italian. Un uomo molto gentile, veramente.
