JEANNE SHAPIRO BAMBERGER

1924 - 2024

BAMBERGER, Jeanne Shapiro (Berkeley, CA) Jeanne Shapiro Bamberger passed away peacefully at home of natural causes on December 12, 2024 at the age of 100. She is survived by her two sons, Joshua and Paul (Chip); four grandchildren - Jerehme, Kaela, Eli and Noah; and many caring relatives and friends. She was predeceased by her former husband, Frank K. Bamberger. Jeanne was born on February 11, 1924 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her mother, Gertrude Shapiro (nee Kulberg), from a Romanian Jewish family, studied child psychology and was active in the League of Women Voters. Her father, Morse Shapiro, of Lithuanian and Polish Jewish heritage, was a groundbreaking pediatric cardiologist. Jeanne was a force to be reckoned with. In addition to her long and productive academic career, she was politically active and supported the anti-Vietnam war and the civil rights movements. Her first long-term academic appointment was at the University of Chicago where she taught a seminar in Art, Music, and Literature between 1955 and 1969. During this time, she and her then-husband helped co-found the Ancona Montessori School, where she also helped launch the nation's first Montessori Head Start program in 1965. In 1969, Jeanne and her family moved to Wayland, MA, where she began a 32-year career in the Music Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She served as Chair of the Department, as well as an appointment in the MIT Education Department. She also taught at the Harvard Department of Education. At MIT, Jeanne pioneered the use of computer languages to teach children to learn music. She also used her computer innovations to study how children learn music. Ahead of her time, she worked in the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab in the 1980s, and developed computer languages (MusicLogo and Impromptu) while at the MIT Division for Study and Research in Education from 1975 to 1995. Jeanne was one of the first women to be granted tenure at MIT, and became an associate professor in MIT's Humanities Department in 1981. Jeanne published numerous articles and books, including The Art of Listening with Howard Brofsky, The Mind Behind the Musical Ear, Developing Musical Intuitions and Discovering the Musical Mind. She retired from MIT in 2002 and moved to Berkeley CA, where she taught in the Music Department at University of California, Berkeley. Jeanne loved her work, and was beloved and admired by her students and colleagues. She took many students under her wing and assisted many more with their academic careers. She had a creative, fertile mind and loved to ask probing questions, a quality she passed to her progeny and community. It was her excitement and her passion. She continued teaching and publishing her work well into her 90s and had a strong community of friends and colleagues to the end.

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