Ken Sevcik
Reading my email after dinner, and the gmail notifier popped up the shocking title "Ken Sevcik". A sudden heavy feeling flew into my heart. Immediately following the link, the message started by "With deepest regrets ...", and I knew it happened.
Professor Sevcik was one of the faculties I knew personally (althought I only had the opportunity to meet him once for 30 minutes) outside my field. It's about two years ago, when I was at the transitional period of switching supervisors. My research interest at that time was information visualization, and Ken was one of the few professors who had a related background (data visualization). I heard from Prof. Jackson that Ken had developed cancer and could no longer take new students, but Prof. Jackson also recommended me to discuss my research with Ken, and hinted the great benefits it could bring. I was very glad that I followed his advice. I emailed Ken to book an appointment, and to my surprise, the response was quick and kind. I remembered I missed the first appointment due to poor scheduling on my side, but Ken didn't blame me at all, and happily accepted my second appointment attempt.
The meeting happened at a summer evening(as I remembered), when Ken needed to come from home to the lab specifically to meet me and perform some other works. The discussion carried out very well, and Ken gave me many tips on research. Two of the great tips I still remembered were:
When looking at the past literature, both too much or two few work on a particular field might not be a good sign, where too much may indicate that this field has been saturated, while too few may indicate that there is nothing much or it's too difficult to achieve any results in this field.
When looking for research directions or ideas, it's often useful to read the 10 best and most recent publications in a field, and look for their problems, and research results can often come from solving these problems.
After our meeting, we also had a friendly chat on his past experience at China. Ken had a Chinese painting on the office wall, and it properly depicted a soothing environment for a great and kind researcher. Ken told me that he had visited China for several weeks and taught lessons at Zhejiang University. He enjoyed his experience there, and to me, it immediately brought me much closer to him. Although he had cancer at that time, but I can feel the positive energy embedded from his soul, and it's my great pleasure to meet him that day.
Two years have passed, and there were a few more occasions I saw Ken. Once at Bill Buxton's talk on mountain exploration and visualization, and once at a student talk from MIT. I also met him once in the elevator at Bahen, and he kindly nodded to me and smiled. At these occasions, he looked very healthy, and I really hoped he could recover.
But the sad news still arrived today. Ken's departure is really a tremedous loss of University of Toronto as well as Canada. Ken is one of the few ACM fellows Canada had, and a role model for young Ph.D. students like us. I believe in Buddhism, so I believe in afterlife. By my heart I know that Ken will enjoy a happy afterlife, and his contribution in this world will continue to encourage generations to come.
Professor Sevcik was one of the faculties I knew personally (althought I only had the opportunity to meet him once for 30 minutes) outside my field. It's about two years ago, when I was at the transitional period of switching supervisors. My research interest at that time was information visualization, and Ken was one of the few professors who had a related background (data visualization). I heard from Prof. Jackson that Ken had developed cancer and could no longer take new students, but Prof. Jackson also recommended me to discuss my research with Ken, and hinted the great benefits it could bring. I was very glad that I followed his advice. I emailed Ken to book an appointment, and to my surprise, the response was quick and kind. I remembered I missed the first appointment due to poor scheduling on my side, but Ken didn't blame me at all, and happily accepted my second appointment attempt.
The meeting happened at a summer evening(as I remembered), when Ken needed to come from home to the lab specifically to meet me and perform some other works. The discussion carried out very well, and Ken gave me many tips on research. Two of the great tips I still remembered were:
When looking at the past literature, both too much or two few work on a particular field might not be a good sign, where too much may indicate that this field has been saturated, while too few may indicate that there is nothing much or it's too difficult to achieve any results in this field.
When looking for research directions or ideas, it's often useful to read the 10 best and most recent publications in a field, and look for their problems, and research results can often come from solving these problems.
After our meeting, we also had a friendly chat on his past experience at China. Ken had a Chinese painting on the office wall, and it properly depicted a soothing environment for a great and kind researcher. Ken told me that he had visited China for several weeks and taught lessons at Zhejiang University. He enjoyed his experience there, and to me, it immediately brought me much closer to him. Although he had cancer at that time, but I can feel the positive energy embedded from his soul, and it's my great pleasure to meet him that day.
Two years have passed, and there were a few more occasions I saw Ken. Once at Bill Buxton's talk on mountain exploration and visualization, and once at a student talk from MIT. I also met him once in the elevator at Bahen, and he kindly nodded to me and smiled. At these occasions, he looked very healthy, and I really hoped he could recover.
But the sad news still arrived today. Ken's departure is really a tremedous loss of University of Toronto as well as Canada. Ken is one of the few ACM fellows Canada had, and a role model for young Ph.D. students like us. I believe in Buddhism, so I believe in afterlife. By my heart I know that Ken will enjoy a happy afterlife, and his contribution in this world will continue to encourage generations to come.
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