Obituaries
Please alert us to the recent death of any other Rhodes Scholar by emailing communications@rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk.
Raymond C. Mjolsness was a fine theoretical physicist and applied mathematician, a patient mentor and insightful collaborator to colleagues, a longtime member of the Theoretical Division of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and an excellent trombone player.
Raymond Mjolsness was born in Chicago on April 22, 1933. He grew up in several places including St. Louis, Missouri and Helena, Montana. He was an American original, a son of a school teacher who went on to excel in science and music. He was educated at Reed College, at Oxford under a Rhodes Scholarship, and at Princeton. While at Oxford he studied trombone in London with Sidney Langston of the Royal Academy of Music.
While at Princeton Ray met his future wife Patricia, with whom he moved to Los Alamos and raised three children while working at the Laboratory and publishing dozens of scientific papers on plasma physics and related topics. His other interests included chess, finance, and running; also geopolitics and his Norwegian heritage. He owned and read an extensive and ever-growing collection of books, and was a regular customer at the Mesa Public Library.
Ray lived in Los Alamos from 1958 to 2014, with the exception of short forays into academia. From 1967-1969 he was on the faculty of Astronomy at Penn State, doing theoretical cosmology. He brought the family back to Los Alamos in 1969, just in time for the moon landing, moving into a house near the school on Barranca Mesa where he lived until 2014. He then moved to Enumclaw Washington where he kept reading despite health challenges.
The managing partner of Malabar Coast Products and former chairman of Gandhi Peace Foundation, Kottayam, he was the first Rhodes scholar from Kerala. His brilliant academic track record, unique business skills and enviable contacts made him a spectacular personality.
The areas of his studies spread out from political science to philosophy and economics and had degrees in all these subjects. He was an alumnus of St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, Madras Christian College, Chennai and the famous Balliol College, Oxford, UK. At Balliol, he studied with the Rhodes Scholarship, a rare academic honour and opportunity a talented student gets to carry on his studies at the University of Oxford.
He was a member of the rowing team there and the vibes of those dynamic days can be traced from the propeller of his Balliol days that has been kept there.
Read the full obituary here.
Jim was born on March 13, 1930, in Lexington, Virginia, and he was educated at Davidson College (1947-1951) and Merton College, Oxford (Rhodes Scholar, 1951-1954). He served in the US Army (1955-1956) and then taught for two years at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, before returning to Oxford to earn a D.Phil. in Zoology. In 1962, he joined the Biology faculty of the University of Virginia.
Jim's main research interests were ecological genetics and the evolution of animal populations. His research on land snails took him to the British Isles, Australia, and on many trips to Polynesia, where he studied the native snails of the genus Partula. At UVA, Jim chaired the Biology Department from 1984 to 1987; served as director of the Mountain Lake Biological Station for thirteen summers between 1964 and 1990; and mentored several generations of graduate students. He was a Fellow and former President of the Virginia Academy of Sciences and a board member of the Virginia Museum of Natural History. He also chaired the University's Arboretum Committee for over 20 years, often saying that this was his favorite University committee.
Jim was an active mountain climber and lifelong conservationist. He spent many happy days exploring peaks and valleys from the Himalayas to the Alps to the Appalachians of his native Virginia.
Read the full obituary here.
Ron graduated summa cum laude from Brigham Young University; served an LDS mission in Guatemala; was a Rhodes Scholar at Oriel College, University of Oxford, England; and graduated from Columbia University Law School, where he was an Editor of Articles for the Law Review. Ron served as a judicial clerk at the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, Washington, D.C. For four years. Ron was Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Arizona Law School. He was an associate at law firms in Washington, D.C., New York City, NY, and Phoenix, AZ. He was an avid scratch golfer.
William Harley Henry, Harley to all, died peacefully in his sleep in Grinnell, IA on August 31, 2023. He was 86 years old. Born in southwestern Pennsylvania in the town of Brownsville, he moved to Atlantic Beach, Florida, in 1949 with his mother Ruth and sister Sue Ann. He attended Kenyon College (‘59), Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship (’62), and Johns Hopkins University where he received his MA and Ph.D. in English. Harley settled in St. Paul with his then wife, Meser, and 3-week-old daughter, Astrid in 1966 to take a teaching job in the English department at Macalester College, where he stayed until his retirement in 1999.
His European adventures in college, academic sabbaticals, and personal travel, earned him a well-stamped passport. A lifelong lover of baseball, music, and education, Harley continued to pursue these passions up until the end of his life. Whether playing in a jazz band, leading a book club, catching a ballgame, or watching a “crimi”, Harley was always happy to share his analysis and insights. As said by a friend after hearing the news of Harley’s passing, “We have lost a brave, brilliant, kind companion— and a pretty good alto sax man, too!”
Harley is survived by his three children, Astrid, Axel (Mikeya) and Else (Alex).
Karen first joined the Department of Geography at UBC as an assistant professor in 2002, having earned her PhD at Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes Scholar. Twenty-one years later, she leaves an astonishing record of achievement: as Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study 2022-3; as recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship 2022, a SSHRC Connection Award and Trudeau Fellowship in 2017; and as Stanford University’s Annenberg Fellow in Communication, and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars. She is the author of more than 100 academic publications and seven books.
In recent years, Karen brought her geographical fascination with environmental perception and scientific world-making to the realm of sound. In The Sounds of Life (Princeton 2021), Karen builds a prismatic portrait of planetary ecology through the medium of chirps, buzzes, and low cetacean moans. The book garnered immediate critical acclaim, including from the very scientists it featured. It also reaches a broad public through her recent TED Talk. Karen’s next book Gaia’s Web (upcoming with MIT Press) explores how interconnected digital and natural networks will impact biodiversity conservation, environmental governance, and cultivate greater empathy for other species. Both books drew from her Smart Earth Project seeking to mobilize digital technologies to address some of the most pressing challenges of the Anthropocene.
Read the full obituary here
We are saddened to hear that Julian Ogilvie Thompson, informally known as JOT, has passed away in Johannesburg at the age of 89.
JOT served for many years as a dedicated and valued Rhodes Trustee, and was also founding Trustee of the Mandela Rhodes Foundation from 2003 to 2020.
“Julian is remembered as a true gentleman. He possessed a rigorous intellect which he brought to bear on the formative years of the MRF. We appreciated his seventeen years of service to the Foundation, and we send our heartfelt condolences to his family,” said Professor Njabulo S. Ndebele, Chairman of The Mandela Rhodes Foundation’s Board of Trustees.
JOT was a South African mining executive known for the roles he played in De Beers, Minorco and Anglo American. He was a founding trustee of The Mandela Rhodes Foundation, serving from 2003 until June 2020. JOT played a pivotal role in the early days. He connected founding CEO Shaun Johnson to Nicky Oppenheimer, ultimately leading to the donation of the Rhodes Building to Nelson Mandela; the building became the headquarters of the newly established MRF. The donation provided the Foundation with an operational headquarters and a significant asset. As a trustee he also contributed significantly to the governance of the Foundation in its early years through his involvement in the Investment Committee, the Finance/Audit/Risk Committee and the Executive Committee.
JOT was born in Cape Town and studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He proceeded to have an extraordinary career, starting out as Harry Oppenheimer’s assistant at De Beers in 1957 and ultimately becoming chairman of Anglo American. JOT was an important link between the MRF and the mining companies that grew out of Rhodes’ original company De Beers; he was also familiar with the world of the Rhodes Trust, the MRF’s founding partner organisation.
Thomas Swoverland Clayton, age 90 of St. Paul, died August 9 surrounded by family from complications of prostate cancer. Professor Clayton, Regents Professor Emeritus in English at the University of Minnesota, was a distinguished scholar of Shakespeare, Seventeenth Century British Literature and Classics. He was preceded in death by his parents, Robert and Vida (Swoverland) Clayton and his beloved wife Ruth (Madson) Clayton. Tom is survived by Janice Derksen, his partner and companion of 29 years; children, Pamela Clayton Schultz, Katherine Clayton (James McKernon), John Clayton, and David Clayton; grandchildren Dayna Cossetta and Sam Clayton; great-grandchildren Miles, Thomas, and Ava.
Tom was born in New Ulm, MN in 1932. The family lived in several towns in Wisconsin including New Richmond and Viroqua before settling in Winona in 1943, where Tom’s father managed the JC Penney store. He attended Phelps Primary School and Winona High School, where Tom was remembered by classmates as athletic, good-looking, bright and “a wizard of words.” Tom joined the Boy Scouts and in 1947 was awarded the rank of Eagle Scout. Following his junior year of high school, Tom passed the entrance exam to the University of Chicago and was off to start his academic life.
Read the full obituary here
Christopher Seán Day, beloved father, husband, friend, and adventurer, died peacefully at home with his family in Greenwich, CT, on July 27, 2023. He was 74.
Seán, as he was known to all, was born on June 5, 1949, in Cape Town, South Africa to Joan and Eric Day. From his parents, he inherited his moral compass, stoicism, and independent spirit. Seán grew up first in Cape Town and later in Knysna, South Africa, during the apartheid regime. His family strongly opposed the movement, and his parents had relocated to South Africa from Ireland in 1948 as part of General Jan Smuts’ efforts to defeat the Nationalist Party.
At just six years old, Seán began attending boarding school at the South African College School in Cape Town, from which he graduated. Seán loved ships and the sea from his earliest memories, and at 17, he followed this passion and enrolled in the South Africa Merchant Marine Academy. He then spent several years at sea as a cadet in the merchant marine. In 1968, he resumed his studies at the University of Cape Town, earning a degree in business. While a student at UCT, he competed in the first Cape to Rio Yacht Race—the longest continent-to-continent sailing yacht race in the southern hemisphere—as a crew member aboard the Merchant Marine Academy boat. Seán was awarded a Rhodes scholarship, and after completing his national military service as a navigating officer on a destroyer in the South African Navy, he studied law at Oxford University in England beginning in 1972.
After graduating from Oxford, Seán joined the Scottish trading house Jardine Matheson in Hong Kong, where he served as commercial manager of their ship-owning group, the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company. Following two years in Hong Kong and one year in Taipei with Jardines, he joined the Canadian ship-owning group Fed Nav as an operations manager based in Montreal, Canada. During this time, Seán met his future wife, Virginia (Ginny) Farrell, then a student at Harvard Business School. They were introduced by their close friends, Dick and Lisa Cashin.
Seán and Ginny married in 1981 and settled in New York. In 1982 he joined Navios Corporation. After restructuring and restoring Navios, Seán briefly left the shipping industry to work at Citicorp Venture Capital for several years.
In 1989, Seán rejoined Navios and eventually became CEO. In 1999, he joined the Teekay Corporation as its chairman until 2017. At the time of his death, he was Chairman Emeritus of Teekay Corporation and Compass Diversified. During his life, he served on many boards, including Navios Corporation, Teekay Tankers, Teekay Offshore Partners, Teekay LNG Partners, Compass Diversified Holdings, Teekay Corporation and Kirby Corporation.