Letter from Howard Palmer

Dear Jack,

I heard from Yaw Yeboah about your brain tumor and then shortly after that I received a copy of Phil Westmoreland’s helpful email, after which I accessed your blog, with all its information and wonderful messages from your students and colleagues, including a number of prayers and many words of encouragement for you and Carolyn and your children. I am enormously impressed and moved by what I have been reading, and I just want to add my bit.

The main thing I want to say is that one of the prouder and happier moments in my professional life was when I learned from Hoyt Hottel that you were getting tenure at MIT and that my input had quite a bit to do with it. Probably not nearly as much as Hoyt’s, but still…..I’m proud of that. And of course enormously proud of your career as a Penn State Fuel Science PhD (even though I wasn’t your advisor).

You are a gifted teacher, mentor, researcher, writer, and I am sure that you are one of the most admired and affectionately regarded members of the MIT faculty. I think that also applies to the fuels/energy/combustion/materials community at large. I don’t know much about your entrepeneurship, but I have no doubt that it also is outstanding. And I happen to know that personally you are one of the finest people around. And, I judge, one of the most courageous.

God bless you, Carolyn, and your family. I have you in my own prayers.

Howard Palmer