Matthew Farley Burkhart

1983 - 2009

Matthew Farley Burkhart

Matthew Farley Burkhart was born on July 16, 1983 in Rapid City SD and he died on October 6, 2009 in Manhattan NYC. He was 26 years old. He is survived by parents Lee and Bill, sister Laura, wife Wen, and a close circle of friends and work colleagues, also cousins Chrissy and Cami and other devoted family members. Matt died due to recurrent severe major depressive illness after battling the disease for 12 years. Our love for Matt strengthens us in learning to let him go and Matt's love for us strengthens us in going on. We celebrated his life with a mix of sorrow and gratitude at his childhood home in Lake Forest Park, Seattle on October 9, 2009. We will always cherish the outpouring of love and grief support given among so many at that spontaneous gathering. We are grateful for those folks and others who have continued over the years to share their favorite stories about Matt.

When he died, Matt had just completed his 4th year with Google, promoted to Staff Level 6 Engineer a year after he had taken over as Tech Lead of the Singer Project, the massive image stitching program and visualization tool he built for Google Earth. His primary Geo partner in that project eulogized him as having just the right mix of enthusiasm and cynicism to be a successful engineer. Other work colleagues and managers at Google remember Matt as an unbelievably hard worker with an exceptional knowledge of Computer Vision, superlative intuition, and a desire to get 'big things' done; as one who contributed far more than his fair share and solved essentially all of the tough problems with a quiet, modest manner. They remember him as always ready to selflessly help others with their projects; as one to be counted on to bring his kind and friendly attitude and integrity to all he did.

Matt graduated from the University of Washington, a Computer Science Major eulogized by his Computer Graphics and Robotics professor and mentor as highly talented and as really putting himself into the work and making great things happen; the one to step up to the plate to make sure everything was done right and fairly. He grew up in Lake Forest Park, described by one neighbor as shy but as doing 'shy' like nobody else did. He graduated with Shorecrest High School's class of 2001, his classmates remembering him as an exceptionally kind and intelligent person destined to do great things. Throughout his life, Matt was always every bit as compassionate and gentle as he was devoted to science, data, and logic. All of us are heartbroken with his passing but thankful to have been so deeply enriched by his life (https://sites.google.com/site/ourmattmemories/).