Gregory Abraham DeTurck, Music

Gregory Abraham DeTurck, an instructor in the department of music in the School of Arts & Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, died on July 5. He was 34 years old.

Dr. DeTurck graduated from Cherry Hill High School West in New Jersey. He earned his BM and performer’s certificate in piano performance from the Eastman School of Music in 2004, his MM in piano performance with a minor in collaborative piano from the Julliard School in 2006 and his DMA in piano performance and literature with a minor in collaborative piano from the Eastman School of Music in 2014.

He came to Penn in 2011 as a lecturer in the department of music, until leaving for Ithaca College in 2015.

He was an internationally recognized pianist, having performed across Europe, the Middle East, India, China, Japan, Mexico and throughout the US, from Los Angeles to New York. He also performed with the Ensemble ACJW, a two-year fellowship program for young professional classical musicians based at Carnegie Hall.

Dr. DeTurck is survived by his father, Dennis, the Stephen A. Levin Dean of Penn’s College of Arts & Sciences, and his brother, Gary.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in his memory may be made to Penn’s department of music. Checks made payable to the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania may be sent to Laura Weber, SAS Office of Advancement, 3600 Market Street, Suite 300, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

John Jacob Furth, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine

John Jacob Furth, an emeritus professor of pathology & laboratory medicine in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine and a resident of both Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, and Surry, Maine, died in Philadelphia on July 6. He was 87 years old.

Dr. Furth, a first-generation American, was born in Philadelphia. He studied American history at Cornell University and then served as part of the Quartermaster Corps during the Korean War. After completing his service, he went to Yale Law School but left after one year to study medicine at Duke Medical School. He completed his residency at New York University.

In 1962 he accepted a research associate position in the pathology department at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1968, he became an associate professor and in 1980 he became a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine. He was a member of the Senate Executive Committee in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. In 1984, he received a Research Foundation Award for Transcription of genomic DNA by RNA polymerase II. In 1985, he received another for Transcription of Alutype Repeat DNA by RNA Polyvmerase III. He became emeritus in 2000.

A life-long political activist, he ran for mayor of Upper Darby and other elected offices. He was also active in preserving undeveloped land on the Maine coast and worked for years to make Darby Creek a clean, thriving ecosystem.

Dr. Furth is survived by his daughters, Karen, Susan and Robin; his sons-in-law, Jay Nubile, David Lunden and Mark Rutter; and three grandchildren, Sara Furth Lunden, Corinne Furth Lunden and Alex Nubile.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Friends of the Swedish Cabin, 9 Creek Road, Drexel Hill, PA 19026; to Darby Creek Valley Association, P.O. Box 732, Drexel Hill, PA 19026 (www.dcva.org/donate) or to Blue Hill Heritage Trust, 258 Mountain Road, P.O. Box 222, Blue Hill, Maine 04614 (www.bluehillheritagetrust.org).

Arthur Halim, Penn Undergraduate Student

Arthur Halim, an undergraduate student in the Huntsman Program at Penn, died on July 30 at Oregon Health & Science University Hospital in Portland, Oregon, after a long illness. He was 21 years old.

Mr. Halim entered the Huntsman Program with the Class of 2016, but took time away from school for medical treatment. He was last on campus during the spring 2016 semester.

He was a member of Lambda Phi Epsilon fraternity, Grace Covenant Church, the Penn Taiwanese Society and other student organizations. He worked as a research assistant in Wharton’s Management department in 2013 and interned at PT. Lautandhana Securindo, an investment management company in Indonesia, in 2014.

He is survived by his father, Amin; his mother, Pik Fa; and two brothers, Aaron and Arvin.

John F. Harris, Jr., Penn Museum Volunteer

John F. Harris, Jr., a collections volunteer at the Penn Museum, died on June 22 after a long illness. He was 91 years old.

Dr. Harris was born in Stroudsburg, PA. In 1943, the US Navy sent him to the University of Pennsylvania to study engineering. After the war, he returned to Penn to earn three degrees— his BA, MS and PhD in chemistry—and then went to work for over 30 years in the central research department at DuPont in Delaware. While at DuPont, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to do post-doctorate work at the University of Cologne, Germany.

After retiring from DuPont in 1985, he went regularly to the Penn Museum, where he became a collections volunteer, an expert at deciphering Maya hieroglyphs and a consulting scholar. He was fascinated with the Pre-Columbian cultures of Mesoamerica and with the ancient Maya in particular. He was president and an active member of the Pre-Columbian Society, which continues to meet monthly at the Museum. In 1992, working with Steve Stearns, Dr. Harris wrote Understanding Maya Inscriptions, a hieroglyph handbook published by the Museum that is used at major universities around the world. In 1995, Jeremy Sabloff, then director of the Museum, presented Dr. Harris with the Director’s Award “for his contributions in spreading understanding of Maya hieroglyphs to the general public.”

Dr. Harris is survived by his wife, Jackie; his children, Mark (Karen), John (Jane) and Katherine; four grandchildren; and two great grandchildren.

Memorial contributions may be sent to the Helen Graham Cancer Center, 4701 Ogletown-Stanton Road, Newark, DE 19713, or to the Bread Upon the Waters Scholarship Fund at the University of Pennsylvania, 16 College Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104.

Haralambos Kritikos, Electrical Engineering

Haralambos “Harry” Kritikos, GrE’61, professor emeritus in electrical engineering, died on July 2 after a long illness. He was 83 years old.

Dr. Kritikos was born in Tripoli, Greece. He received all of his degrees in electrical engineering, earning BS and MS degrees from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1954 and 1956, respectively, and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1961. During his doctoral studies in 1956, he became an assistant instructor at the Moore School at Penn. He was also a research fellow at Caltech. He rose through the ranks at Penn, eventually becoming professor, the position he held until his retirement in 1999.

He was appointed editor of IEEE Transactions in Geoscience Electronics in 1975. He was a member of Sigma Xi, the international honor society of science and engineering, and was active in the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), having been named an IEEE Fellow in 1988 and the recipient of both the IEEE Centennial and Bicentennial Medals.

He was a theorist in electromagnetism. His early work was on diffraction and propagation of electromagnetic waves and the biomedical applications of electromagnetism. In more recent years, he was engaged in research on wavelets, symmetry and group theory with their applications to electromagnetic theory and antenna arrays.

Dr. Kritikos is survived by his wife, Susanne (CGS’68, MSW’76); his daughter, Melissa Kaiser (C’95, Eng’95, WG’01); and his grandchildren, Teddy and Alex.

Emily Carota Orne, Psychiatry

Emily Carota Orne, research associate of psychology in Penn’s department of psychiatry, died on August 1. She was 77 years old.

She graduated in 1959 from Bennington College and did graduate work in psychology at Brandeis University. In 1962, she authored the widely used Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility.

Ms. Orne joined Penn as a research associate in the department of psychiatry in 1979. For more than 40 years at Penn, she collaborated with her husband, the late Martin T. Orne, professor of psychiatry, on research in psychology, sleep and the medical use of hypnosis. In 1997, she became a member of the department of experimental psychiatry, where in 2001 she became a senior research coordinator.

She authored 38 scientific articles and reviews in these areas and was the recipient of several scholarly awards and honors, including the Benjamin Franklin Gold Medal for achievements in hypnosis from the International Society of Hypnosis. She continued to contribute to research in various capacities until her retirement in 2014.

Ms. Orne is survived by her son, Frank; her daughter, Tracy; her brother, Noel Farrell Carota; her sisters-in-law, Lindsay Stradley Carota and Susie Orne, and their families; and her caregiver, Michael McCullough.

Memorial donations may be made to the Institute for Experimental Psychiatry Research Foundation, 290 Sycamore Avenue, Merion Station, PA 19066.

Sohrab Rabii, Electrical & Systems Engineering

Sohrab Rabii, a professor emeritus of electrical & systems engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, died on July 18 of pancreatic cancer at home in the Spring Garden section of Philadelphia. He was 78 years old.

Born in Ahwaz, Iran, Dr. Rabii came to the US in 1958 on a study-abroad scholarship from the Iranian government. He earned his bachelor of science degree in engineering from the University of Southern California, then earned his master’s and doctoral degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He did advanced study at MIT and worked briefly for the Monsanto Corporation.

He joined the Penn faculty in 1969 as an assistant professor in what is now the School of Engineering & Applied Science. He became an associate professor in 1973. He was chair of the department of electrical engineering from 1977-1982. In 1985, he received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Dr. Rabii was also a researcher known for his contributions to the condensed matter theory of carbon-based materials—what happens when carbon electrons and nuclei function in a condensed state. He was a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a member of the American Physical Society and the author of 160 journal and conference papers.

He retired in 2006, but remained an integral part of the Penn Engineering community, regularly attending lectures and faculty meetings. He escorted Penn students to Mali and Ghana, where they set up computer and electrical engineering labs.

Dr. Rabii is survived by his wife, Susan B. Hunt; his former wife, Patricia B. Rabii; his daughters, Susan M. Zima and Elizabeth Rabii Cribbs; five grandchildren; three brothers; a sister; and nieces and nephews.

Donations may be made to Autism Speaks (www.autismspeaks.org/donate) or to the School of Engineering & Applied Science at the University of Pennsylvania (www.seas.upenn.edu/giving).

Robert Regan, English

Robert “Bob” Regan, a professor emeritus of English at Penn, died of heart failure at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania on July 5. He was 86 years old.

Dr. Regan was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English literature from Centenary College of Louisiana in Shreveport in 1951. He was awarded a scholarship to Harvard, where he received a master’s degree, also in English literature, in 1952.

He joined the Navy and served in the Korean War and later joined the Navy Reserve, earning the rank of commander. He served in Vietnam in the early 1960s.

After the Korean War, he returned to Centenary College to teach and began volunteering in the civil rights movement with his mother. They registered people to vote, and Dr. Regan encouraged activism among his students. He then enrolled in a doctoral program at the University of California at Berkeley and taught at the University of Virginia from 1963-67. He earned his PhD in American literature in 1965 and was awarded a Fulbright scholarship two years later.

He joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. During his 30 years at Penn, he served twice as the undergraduate chair of the English department.

Dr. Regan is the author of Unpromising Heroes, Mark Twain and His Characters and editor of Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays. He also served as a consultant on a PBS documentary about Edgar Allan Poe. He wrote articles for publications including Virginia Quarterly Review and Nineteenth-Century Fiction.

In addition to his wife, Mary Katherine Hester; he is survived by his son, Christopher; his step-son, David Jeanclos; two daughters, Alison and Amelia; and his first wife, Carole Ann Bennett.

David Thomas Rowlands, Jr., Pathology

David Thomas Rowlands, Jr., a Penn alumnus, former professor and chairman of the department of pathology at Penn, died on August 5. He was 86 years old.

Dr. Rowlands was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and raised in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and after three years of undergraduate studies was admitted into Penn’s School of Medicine. During his undergraduate years at Penn, he played intercollegiate soccer. Following medical school, his medical residency in pathology led him to Cincinnati, Ohio. Upon completion of his residency, he served in the Navy and was stationed in Key West, Florida. During this time, he was appointed as the chief casualty officer for the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

Following his time in the Navy, he worked on a team for the transplant of livers in humans in Denver, Colorado. In 1964, he joined Rockefeller University in New York City, where he was the number two in the laboratory group for the Nobel Prize winner in medicine research team. In the late 1960s, he was an associate professor at Duke University’s School of Medicine.

He joined Penn’s faculty as a professor in 1970 and succeeded Peter Nowell to lead the department of pathology as chairman from 1973 to 1978. He was interested in developmental immunology, cardiovascular pathobiology, organ transplantation and transplantation immunology.

In 1982, he accepted the chairmanship of pathology at the University of South Florida (USF). In 1991, he retired from USF, but found he missed teaching and joined the staff at the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine. While there, he authored a book entitled Golf Courses of the Caribbean.

Dr. Rowlands is survived by his wife, Gwendolyn York Rowlands; two daughters and four grandchildren. Burial at Florida National Cemetery with Military Honors will take place at a later date.

David W. H. Shale, Mathematics

David W. H. Shale, professor emeritus of mathematics at Penn, died on January 7 from respiratory disease. He was 83 years old.

Dr. Shale was born in Christchurch, New Zealand. He attended St. Andrew’s Preparatory School, then graduated from Canterbury College at age 20 with a master’s degree and first class honors in mathematics. In 1954, he entered the mathematics program at the University of Chicago, where he earned his PhD. He spent time at the Mathematics Institute in Copenhagen, the University of Toronto, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, before coming to the University of Pennsylvania in 1964 as an assistant professor.

In 1966, he became a US citizen and an associate professor. In 1970, he became a professor. From 1986-1989, he served as the undergraduate chair in the department of mathematics. During his time at Penn he also taught courses in the College of General Studies and the Wharton School.

Dr. Shale did research in functional analyses of the formation of the quantum theory. He retired from Penn and took emeritus status in 2000. His scientific interests, apart from mathematics, included physics and astrophysics, and after his retirement he added economics.

He is survived by his wife, Marilyn; his son, Joshua; his daughter, Jennifer Adams; his children’s spouses; five grandchildren; and his sister, Jennifer Bertram.