JOHN CASEY Obituary

CASEY, John Retired Northeastern Faculty Member Age 78, of Cambridge, MA, died Dec. 31 of a stroke. John grew up in Brooklyn, NY, and received his BS degree from Boston College in mathematics where he was in the Honors Program. He did graduate Ph.D. work in mathematics at Brown University. He retired from the faculty of the College of Computer Science at Northeastern University. John was pivotal as a key member of the foundational group forming a College of Computer Science at Northeastern. He was also pivotal in designing and programming the courses for the new computer science programs. Based on his contributions, the President of the University invited John to be a member of the faculty to visit China in 1980 to open up educational exchanges between Chinese universities and Northeastern. John had tremendously wide knowledge about many topics, talked very fast, and was lots of fun to be with. He had a clever and irreverent sense of humor, and was very quick and funny. John loved to travel and traveled around the world in 1975, living in Australia, and traveling to Bali, a jungle in Sri Lanka, and to game parks in Africa while living in a VW beetle. His memorial will be at a later date.

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Published by Boston Globe from Jan. 11 to Jan. 12, 2021.

Memories and Condolences
for JOHN CASEY

9 Entries

Marcos de Alba

December 7, 2023

I have wonderful memories from Prof. John Casey being gentle and making me laugh. I started CCS graduate studies at Northeastern in August of 1997, I took the first graduate class with him as an international student. I really enjoyed learning from him. He was genuine and nice, very important for me as a foreign student.

Raymond Wach

February 9, 2022

John was my favorite professor at Northeastern, he was a genuinely nice person, smart, funny and always a pleasure to be around. I was in the first graduating class of the College of Computer Science thanks to John. He gave me my first paying job in his computer science lab at Northeastern and he helped countless other students become software professionals when it really was a brand new field of study. If you ever had him as a professor you'll remember him walking into the room looking like he just rolled out of bed, hair all over the place chalk dust all over him from the last class, big smile on his face. He loved teaching and his students loved him. Thank you so much John for being such a positive influence on so many of us, you will be greatly missed!

Jonathan Brouder

January 6, 2022

My uncle was good man took me to many restaurants and museums as well as ski trips to vermont and cape cod as a child , I remember asking him questions about almost any subject and he knew the answer the obituary didn´t mention he won the national spelling bee and math bee in the early 60´s and I believe skipped two or three grades in grammar school rip

Anne Casey Brouder

January 5, 2022

a little boy with freckles and a big brain...Ahead of his time ...Always way ahead of us all in Brooklyn...Johnny soaked in everything brilliant about his surroundings,and like Peter Pan went off to Neverland to seek many adventures...Good Luck there..Love ,your sister Anne and family...

Jim

July 21, 2021

I remember with pride and joy our bike ride from Boston College to NYC after Graduation in 1963.
RIP, old buddy.

John Jordan

June 17, 2021

I just learned of John’s passing from its mention in the Boston College Magazine, Summer 2021.
We lived in the same house at BC for four years, and both being in the Honors Program were often in the same classes. What struck me first about John was his remarkable ability, even at age 18, to date, upon hearing it once, a Mozart piece to within a year of its composition. Unusual musical sensitivity is not uncommon with mathematicians; in my experience, his was astonishing.
When I sailed from New York to England in 1963, John joined my family in seeing me off at the Manhattan pier; at that time all were welcome on board prior to lines being cast off. He gave me a bottle of ‘Est, Est, Est.’ a storied Italian wine which I consumed with grateful pleasure while crossing the Atlantic, and have since enjoyed. It was a gesture typical of both his discerning taste and thoughtfulness.
Our paths diverged for many years but I was back in contact with John prior to his retirement from Northeastern, and we hoped we might get together in Cambridge where he then lived. Alas, the stars never aligned and it did not happen. I wish it had.
J Jordan
Toronto

Robert Case

January 13, 2021

John was a great guy and just fun to be around. He pointed my wife and me, about to travel to Spain, to this great stand-up restaurant in Madrid, La Trucha, with seafood canapes and grilled vegetables. John seemed to know about everything. He is missed

suzanne ogden

January 12, 2021

I first met John when we were both at the University of Michigan, some time between 1964-66. He was wicked smart, interested in everything, and loved having a good time--especially at Halloween, when he often had a full-on costume party. I was surprised when, at Brown University, I ran into him on the street and discovered that like myself, he was pursuing a PhD. I would occasionally run into him, especially when we both participated in the halcyon days of the Vietnam War protests at Brown University in the early 1970s. But I was stunned that, in 1973, on my first day as a new faculty member at Northeastern University, when the new university faculty were introduced at the Senate, his name was called! It was as if we were shadowing each other throughout our academic careers. John was an unusually nice person, so egalitarian, and so interested in new perspectives. I am sorry he is no longer with us.

Mitchell Wand

January 11, 2021

I taught with John from the time I arrived in 1985 until his retirement in 2013. John was a good teacher and a gentle man. Aside from his contributions to the curriculum, John served in the College as one who would remind us of the importance of human values. He was always sensitive to the personal and emotional dynamics in our discussions, and would often be a calming influence when the discussion got heated. He would seldom give advice, but he would always listen carefully to what each person was saying, and when he gave advice it was always good.

I will miss him.

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