Stephen B. Weston

1959 - 2019

Weston, Stephen B.
Stephen B. Weston of Hamden, Connecticut, died on Wednesday, July 10, 2019, of complications resulting from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Steve was born on January 10, 1959, at Fort Meade, Maryland, and graduated Bethlehem-Center High School, Fredericktown, Pennsylvania, in 1977. He received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982 and a Bachelor of Science degree from California University of Pennsylvania in 1983.
Steve spent his professional career in the field of parallel processing computer systems, becoming a leading expert. He was a High Performance Computing Specialist at Yale University since 2011, and has been called "the Guru of R" (a statistical programming language). He previously worked for Floating Point Systems in Beaverton, Oregon, and Scientific Computing Associates, in New Haven, Connecticut, and was a founder of Revolution Computing, Inc. Steve was the original author of the forEach, iterators, doMC, and doSNOW packages for R, as well as author and maintainer of the doMPI and itertools packages.
The many handmade items of furniture that fill his house, including cherry sideboard and bedside table, mahogany bench, and an authentically hand-carved windsor chair, as well as the many pieces of woodworking equipment that fill his basement, testify to Steve's interest and skill in carpentry.
Finally, Steve was a proficient amateur musician. In high school, he formed a garage band called Bad Times, playing lead guitar and creating all the arrangements. In addition to playing electric and acoustic guitars and electric bass, Steve later learned to play banjo, mandolin and other stringed instruments. He occasionally played bass guitar in his church band, and spent many evenings playing recorder with his mother. He always enjoyed learning and growing musically and he passed on his love of music to all his children.
Steve is survived by his parents Bruce and Pauline (Messenger) Weston, his wife Diana (Young) Weston, daughter Erica Weston, sons Ian Weston and Isaac Weston, sisters Debra (Weston) Walker, Jennifer Weston, and Gail Weston-Roberts, and brother Eric Weston.
A service celebrating Steve's life will be held on Sunday, July 14, at 1:00 p.m., at St. John's Episcopal Church, 400 Humphrey St., New Haven, CT 06511, (203) 562-1487.
Memorial donations can be made to the ALS Association (http://www.alsa.org/) or St. John's Episcopal Church.