Obituary, Andrew Ladd, PhD. (1978 - 2007)
Andrew Ladd passed away on March 4, 2007, at University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor. He is survived by his loving wife Fumiko Chino, as well as his parents Stuart and Debra Ladd, sister Kelly, grandparents Gordon and Phyllis Ladd and Graham George (June), parents-in-law James Gordon and Dr. Irene Gordon, and his many loyal friends and relatives. Andrew received a doctorate from Rice University in Houston and was professor of computer science at the University of Michigan. He will be forever remembered for his amazing wit and intelligence as well as his steadfast strength in the face of adversity. Your photographs and memories of Andrew are requested in lieu of flowers. Donations to a research fund in his honour will be appreciated (information to be made available at the service). Service on Friday, March 9 at 11 a.m., Mount Royal Funeral Complex, 1297 Chemin de la Foret, Montreal.
Published in the Montreal Gazette from 3/6/2007 - 3/8/2007.
Open Letter from Lydia Kavraki (March 26, 2007)
Dear Colleagues,
I write with great sadness to let you know that Andrew Ladd passed away on March 4, 2007 in his sleep. He bravely fought a long and difficult battle with cancer.
Andrew spent almost six years at Rice and obtained his Ph.D. from Rice, before moving to the University of Michigan Ann Arbor as an assistant professor.
In his short career, Andrew has been very productive. Most of his work has been on robot motion planning. His 2005 Robotics Science and Systems paper described a novel sampling-based motion planning algorithm that became his Ph.D. dissertation work. Andrew designed an effective sampling-based planner for systems with second-order dynamics and other non-trivial dynamics, and he integrated tightly physics-based simulators with his planner. I found his work very impressive.
I will always remember Andrew for his fierce intellect, his insatiable curiosity, his bottomless well of ideas, his energy and his amazing will-power. All of us at Rice will miss him greatly.
Andrew is survived by his wife, Fumiko Chino (fumikochino@gmail.com), his mother and father, Debra and Stuart Ladd (stuart.ladd@sng.ca), and his sister, Kelly Ladd.
I would like to thank all of you who contacted us regarding Andrew during the recent weeks.
We have lost great colleague.
Sincerely,
Lydia Kavraki
P.S. For those of you have inquired, here is some information for the memorial fund his family has set up:
Andrew Ladd Rice University Fellowship - in trust c/o Schlesinger Newman Goldman 625 Rene Levesque Blvd. West Suite 1100 Montreal, Quebec H3B 1R2
Checks can be sent either in U.S. or Canadian currency.