The family of Stephen Rudnick is saddened to announce his passing on May 19th at his home in Mountain View, California. Steve was born on March 12, 1943 in Hartford, Connecticut. Steve is survived by his wife Janet Werkman, as well as her daughter Rachel Werkman and her spouse, Paul Venuti. He also leaves behind his sister Cynthia Greenblatt and her husband David, niece Stacy and husband Dennis and their children Sam, Matt, and Addy Reed. He was predeceased by his parents, Abe and Fay Rudnick and his nephew Jay Greenblatt. Steve received his Ph.D. from the Harvard School of Public Health and spent his entire career as a professor and researcher at Harvard University. Steve related to people with kindness, honesty, humor, and most of all, acceptance to anyone fortunate to know him.

The funeral service will take place at Beaver Brook Cemetery in Clinton, Connecticut on Thursday, May 25th at 11:30 am.

The family will receive visitors at their home following the funeral service. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by Hartford Courant on May 24, 2023.

Memories and Condolences
for Stephen Rudnick

Sponsored by the family.

8 Entries

Erica Walker

August 19, 2025

I had a random inkling to Google Dr. Rudnick to see how he was doing. I am so sad to learn that he has passed. I took Dr. Rudnick's Noise and Vibration course pass/fail. I remember once telling him that I was taking it pass/fail after scoring poorly on an assignment. His comment to me was SO funny.."You know that you can still fail!" LOOOOL. I went on to "pass" the course and served as his TA the following year. I loved following him to his office after class and talking his head off about EVERYTHING from politics to guns. I truly will miss him. He is the reason why I am the researcher I am.

David M Burwen

June 17, 2023

I met Steve when I rushed the AEPi fraternity at WPI in 1962. Steve was an upper class man who matriculated a year earlier.
As such, we did not spend much time together beyond
fraternity meals.

Fifty years later Steve and Janet were planning to move to California to live in a cohousing community after Steve retired from Harvard. I first met them when they attended the national cohousing convention in 2012, searching for a cohousing community that met their needs. Steve & I didn't recognize each other.

At the time my wife and I were forming the Mountain View Cohousing Community (MVCC) in Silicon Valley. We were recruiting new members. Our community was a good match
for Steve and Janet, having many professional members with PhDs, MDs and other advanced degrees. Steve and Janet
sign-up. We were delighted to discovered the WPI/AEPi connection, during one of Steve and Janet's subsequent visits to Mountain View.

Steve and Janet moved to MVCC in 2014, shortly after we completed their condominium. Steve and I quickly became cohousing bicycling buddies, sharing many rides together for
the next seven years. During one exciting ride Steve, I, and another friend were riding on the extensive network of levy top paths in south San Francisco Bay. Steve suddenly stopped to rescue a bicyclist who had driven off of the side of a levy.
Walking to the edge of the embankment, he discovered two people in the cold water below--the bicyclist and a person who
slid fifteen feet down the forty-five degree levy embankment
while trying to save this fellow. In Steve´s haste to rescue them,
he stepped onto the steep embankment to climb down and give a helping hand. The loose gravel surface suddenly slid out from under him. Now there were three people going hypothermic in the sixty-five degree water. It took nearly an hour to get Steve
and the others out, with the help of borrowed dog leashes tied together for a rescue rope, and several people pulling from path above the embankment.

In 2015 Steve came down with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, joining me as a lymphoma patient at Stanford Medical School Oncology Department. It is the home of a world class lymphoma clinic that provided Steve with the best standard of care plus experimental therapies. It kept his cancer under control for the next 6 years.

In 2021 Steve's lymphoma began progressing in spite of all available therapeutic options. I think that our time together during this awful period helped him pass away with more gratitude and less fear.

I appreciate the times we spent together. His friendship enriched my life in many ways. I will miss him.

David M Burwen
WPI 1966
Brandeis 1971

Helena Palacios

June 12, 2023

Dear Janet, and family,
I just learnt about Steve´s passing, and wanted to send you a big hug.
Steve was my professor of ventilation at Harvard. Even if I was not the brightest student in his classes, he was always very encouraging and caring. I loved his kind, loving personality and his sense of humor. And the fact that he would always bike to School, no matter what the weather was..
He even invited me once, with a few other foreign students, for Thanksgiving to his home. He was always so generous with with time, such a wonderful friend.
I wish I had told him how much I use those difficult engineering concepts and extremely long formulas he taught us to protect the health of workers..

Dave Luber - AEPi - WPI '65

May 27, 2023

Janet,
Howard Sherry called me on Wednesday to tell me of Steve's passing. We had known that he wasn't doing well recently, but it was still a shock to hear the sad news. Sylvia and I send our condolences to you and to the rest of the family. He will be missed. I look back at our years together at WPI and then at Penn. Together with our fraternity brothers Greg Barry and Norm Dwartz, we shared an apartment on Lincoln Street during our junior and senior years at WPI, and then with Howard, Bob Stoltz, John Sonne, and others, we had the house on Warrington Ave in Philly. Those were very special times and good times together. I am so glad that you and Steve found each other after he went back to Boston and to Harvard. I am also glad that Sylvia and I got to meet you at our 2005 WPI reunion. I have attached a photo of the four of us together from that reunion. I hope it brings back some happy memories for you as it did for me. He was a great friend and an important part of my life during those important years of my life.
Dave Luber

Jenn Cavallari

May 26, 2023

Dr Rudnick taught me everything I know about ventilation, noise, and so much more. As important as what he taught is how he taught - with kindness, patience and respect. I model this today with my own students. I am so grateful to have been taught by Prof. Rudnick. Wishing family and friends peace. May his memory continue on.

David Leith

May 25, 2023

As students together at Harvard Steve and I had the same faculty advisor; after graduation we both stayed on and worked together for many years. As a scientist and engineer, Steve was first rate; he sought to understand difficult issues at the most fundamental level and if he said something was true, you could depend on it. We became good friends, the kind of friend you could always rely on. He was fun to be with and had a great sense of humor. Steve and I played squash together at least once a week. He was competitive. When he lost, which wasn´t often, Steve did so in good spirits. When he won he deserved to win, and as his opponent I never felt bad about losing to Steve. Although we both moved away from Boston and rarely saw each other in recent years, our friendship was of a kind that did not fade with time or distance. He was, and will always be, a dear friend.

Mike Ellenbecker

May 25, 2023

Marlene and I just heard the sad news - really sorry to have missed the service today. Steve and I were doctoral students together at the Harvard School of Public Health in the late 1970s. A few memories - we spent many many days and nights running experiments in the pilot plant, located way below ground. We would let off steam on the squash court - a sport that Steve attacked like everything else he did - full speed ahead, so keep your head up. Steve was brilliant, funny, dedicated to the mission of protecting peoples' health, and especially solicitous towards his mother, who he talked to frequently on the phone. He will be missed.

Bob Herrick

May 24, 2023

I had the privilege of knowing, and teaching with Steve Rudnick for almost 25 years. Steve´s approach was unapologetically old school: problem sets, lab reports, quizzes and final exams. His courses were demanding and rigorous, but Steve´s kindness and willingness to help the students tempered their experience. I recall one student´s course evaluation which said (something like) "I never worked so hard in my life for 2.5 credits, but I never learned so much!" So a big part of Steve´s legacy will be the students whose careers he helped launch.

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