John was a servant leader. A truly encouraging and humble professor. The first day I met him, as his new PhD student, he brought me to the refectory at Silwood for tea. He showed me his new spatial tool to calculate costs for eradication campaigns. Then he candidly asked me for my opinion. I felt inadequate and did not have anything particularly useful to say, yet he listened attentively and made me feel as my opinion really mattered. That he would put himself at my level, from day one, blew my mind. From then onwards, he kept nurturing my confidence, allowing me to fall and stand up, again and again, with endless patience. It was not the patience of a supervisor but the patience of a father, an academic father.
John was an extraordinary interdisciplinary scientist that was way ahead of his time. He would navigate nebulous disciplinary divides effortlessly. I would say that the more difficult things would get, the more unchartered the territory was, the more fun he was having. I could see a glint in his eyes when he was combining entomology and economics, geography and public health, jumping from farmers, to fisheries, to mosquitoes and back to agricultural pests. I was so profoundly influenced by him that I am spending the rest of my career trying to reproduce, rather clumsily, his magical tinkering between disciplines, yet never fully managing to master it.
John did impactful science that really mattered to people and the environment. He never chased impact factors, flashy journals, buzzwords, or dedicated any effort to self-promotion. He could give his best to a small cocoa pest in Malaysia, fruit fly outbreaks in the USA or the regulation of modified mosquitoes. All the problems were the same to him, regardless of their size or profile. The only thing that really mattered was that people’s food, livelihoods or lives were at stake, and something had to be done about it. A great measure of his vast impact are all the countless international and national agencies and decision-makers that would constantly knock on his door to seek his advice. His legacy will live through the myriad policies and regulations that he helped to inform.
John, this caught me off guard, it was too sudden. I was taking from granted catching up with you again soon. Having a beer together, asking you for career advice, are my best memories in academia. Now that all is gone, I feel lost. The most painful is that I never got to thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all that you taught me. John, you will always be my inspiration to try to be a better supervisor, teacher and scientist. Thank you for having been such a fundamental part of my journey. Good bye, my academic father, you will be sorely missed.
Roman.
John was a servant leader. A truly encouraging and humble professor. The first day I met him, as his new PhD student, he brought me to the refectory at Silwood for tea. He showed me his new spatial tool to calculate costs for eradication campaigns. Then he candidly asked me for my opinion. I felt inadequate and did not have anything particularly useful to say, yet he listened attentively and made me feel as my opinion really mattered. That he would put himself at my level, from day one, blew my mind. From then onwards, he kept nurturing my confidence, allowing me to fall and stand up, again and again, with endless patience. It was not the patience of a supervisor but the patience of a father, an academic father.
John was an extraordinary interdisciplinary scientist that was way ahead of his time. He would navigate nebulous disciplinary divides effortlessly. I would say that the more difficult things would get, the more unchartered the territory was, the more fun he was having. I could see a glint in his eyes when he was combining entomology and economics, geography and public health, jumping from farmers, to fisheries, to mosquitoes and back to agricultural pests. I was so profoundly influenced by him that I am spending the rest of my career trying to reproduce, rather clumsily, his magical tinkering between disciplines, yet never fully managing to master it.
John did impactful science that really mattered to people and the environment. He never chased impact factors, flashy journals, buzzwords, or dedicated any effort to self-promotion. He could give his best to a small cocoa pest in Malaysia, fruit fly outbreaks in the USA or the regulation of modified mosquitoes. All the problems were the same to him, regardless of their size or profile. The only thing that really mattered was that people’s food, livelihoods or lives were at stake, and something had to be done about it. A great measure of his vast impact are all the countless international and national agencies and decision-makers that would constantly knock on his door to seek his advice. His legacy will live through the myriad policies and regulations that he helped to inform.
John, this caught me off guard, it was too sudden. I was taking from granted catching up with you again soon. Having a beer together, asking you for career advice, are my best memories in academia. Now that all is gone, I feel lost. The most painful is that I never got to thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all that you taught me. John, you will always be my inspiration to try to be a better supervisor, teacher and scientist. Thank you for having been such a fundamental part of my journey. Good bye, my academic father, you will be sorely missed.
Roman.
