Romas Mitalas - In Memoriam
Professor Emeritus Romas Mitalas passed away quietly on Wednedsay, 30 Nov. 2016, at 83 years of age.
Romas was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1933. The second world war uprooted many Baltic families, and thus he came to Canada.
He received his B.A. and M.A. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Toronto. He then went on to Cornell University where he received a PhD. in Theoretical Physics.
Romas was first hired by the Department of Physics at Western in 1964. He then moved over to the newly formed Department of Astronomy in 1968. He retired in 1996. After retirement Romas enjoyed coming to colloquia and other events.
Romas was an expert in stellar interiors, as trembling graduate students could attest.
He is survived by his wife Nancy, sister Giedre, sister-in-law Dalia, along with many nieces and nephews.
Romas was a true intellectual, being extremely curious about the world and its people. He was extremely kind-hearted, and generous, also seeing the humour in many things. A typical conversation with Romas could be politically charged, but could also touch on the beauty of there being roughly Pi x 10**7 seconds in a year, or could move to the quality of maple syrup in Ontario.
He will be dearly missed.
[a small gallery of images can be found on our Flickr site.]
