Joan Gottlieb Dyer passed away on November 7, 2018. At Barnard she accelerated her studies and graduated with the class of 1961, although in recent years she reaffiliated with our class.
Joan was a wonderful and talented person. After teaching mathematics at CUNY she moved to IBM Research where, as a computer scientist, she helped to develop new kinds of software, including (perhaps most famously) a computer chip so secure that if you attempted to tamper with it it would self-destruct (a real implementation of technology that had been imagined on Mission Impossible decades earlier). She was an award-winning quilter, a highly regarded knitter and knitwear designer (see photo above for one of her original designs), a talented pianist who turned her attention to learning the cello when she retired (and played in an amateur string quartet).
In 2013, Joan started Arion Chamber Music, hoping to enrich the New York chamber music scene. She served as its executive director until her death. For further information and to donate to Arion in Joan’s memory, visit arionchambermusic.org.
Joan was, as hundreds of people will attest, a good friend. She will be missed. Her friend Mimi Ehrlich ’62 summed up the feelings of many when she e-mailed Davis Foulger, Joan’s partner, the morning after her death: "An extraordinary presence is gone. I will miss her."