For A. Peter Walshe, working to end apartheid — a system of racial segregation and oppression enforced by South Africa’s white minority government until it came to an end in the 1990s — was for years a central focus of his life.
Walshe, a professor emeritus of political science and longtime director of the African studies program, died March 9. He was 91.
Walshe had observed apartheid firsthand from childhood. During the 1980s, he publicly and repeatedly urged Notre Dame administrators and trustees to divest the University’s financial holdings from companies doing business in South Africa. He was not successful, but he never regretted the effort.
He served as a faculty adviser to the Anti-Apartheid Network, a student organization that held rallies on the front steps of the Main Building on Friday afternoons. Walshe always participated in the rallies.
Jill Witkowski Heaps ’99 discovered her favorite professor in Walshe. “His African Politics class was riveting. Attending class was like watching the most fascinating BBC documentary,” she says. “Professor Walshe would walk into class and pull a pile of ancient notes from his weathered leather bag. . . . The class hung on his every word.”
Aubrey Peter Walshe was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He earned a degree at Oxford University, where he played first-class international cricket, and taught briefly at Pius XII Catholic University College in Basutoland, now Lesotho, then joined the Notre Dame teaching faculty in 1962. With support from Notre Dame, he completed his doctoral studies at St. Anthony’s College, Oxford, then returned to campus in 1967 where he would serve on the faculty for 41 years.
In 1979, Walshe was the inaugural recipient of the University’s Grenville Clark Award, which honors an individual whose volunteer activities advance the causes of peace and human rights. He also received awards for his teaching.
The author of several books, including The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa: The African National Congress, 1912-1952, Walshe had wide-ranging academic interests in the relationship between church and state, the politics and history of sub-Saharan Africa and Christian socialism.
For two decades, he led a campus summer institute for Christian missionaries preparing to serve in Africa.
He is survived by Ann, his wife of 68 years, four children and four grandchildren.
Karl Ameriks focused his scholarship on the history of modern philosophy during his 43 years at Notre Dame. The McMahon-Hank Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, he died April 28. He was 77 years old.
Ameriks was born in Munich, in Allied-occupied Germany, just after World War II. His family immigrated to the United States when he was a child, and he grew up in Detroit. After earning his undergraduate and doctoral degrees from Yale University, he arrived at Notre Dame in 1973.
He dedicated much of his research to the 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, about whom he published several books, including Kant’s Theory of Mind, Kant and the Historical Turn and Reinhold: Letters on the Kantian Philosophy. He continued to research and write after his retirement in 2016.
Known as a personable and beloved mentor of his graduate students, Ameriks was similarly devoted to spending time with family and friends. A bibliophile, he enjoyed invigorating discussions on a wide array of issues.
“He seemed to know everything about everyone in the history of philosophy, in politics, in literature, in history,” said Samuel Newlands, the Carl E. Koch Professor of Philosophy and department chair. “To have a conversation with him about any topic was a bracing, thrilling journey — you never quite knew where it was going, but you could be confident that it would be full of dry, sly humor, sharp insight, and unexpected twists and turns.”
Ameriks was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009 and was a faculty fellow in the Nanovic Institute for European Studies.
He is survived by his wife of 54 years, Geraldine, an associate teaching professor emerita of Spanish, as well as two sons and three grandchildren.
John Poirier ’54 was enthusiastic for anything science-related and particularly enjoyed working with students who were just starting their scientific journeys.
A professor emeritus of physics and astronomy, Poirier, 92, died April 7.
Born in Lewistown, Montana, Poirier earned a bachelor’s degree in physics at Notre Dame and master’s and doctoral degrees from Stanford University, joining the Notre Dame faculty in 1964. His research interests included astrophysics, cosmic rays and high-energy elementary particle physics.
Poirier was the founder and director of Gamma Ray Astrophysics at Notre Dame — Project GRAND — a cosmic ray observatory created on the north edge of campus in the late 1980s. The observatory featured 64 wire chamber particle detectors in shallow wooden huts, each of which was connected to a central trailer, obtained from NASA surplus, where experiment data was stored. The remains of that research field, which was in operation for 30 years, exist northwest of St. Michael’s Laundry.
Project GRAND’s purpose was to study how nature produces ultra-high energies and where in outer space that energy is produced. “We’re looking at special stars which emit the highest energies known to mankind, called cosmic rays,” Poirier said in a 1989 interview.
“It was really visionary. There are now huge, similar arrays at various places around the world,” says Mitchell Wayne, a professor of physics and astronomy. “John always took pride that he was one of the pioneers.”
Poirier’s research later shifted to other areas of interest, such as muons — unstable subatomic particles that make up much of the cosmic radiation that reaches the Earth’s surface. In retirement, Poirier volunteered to work with local high school students and teachers.
A talented and enthusiastic dancer, he regularly impressed his colleagues and their spouses with his moves at Christmas parties and other social gatherings.
He is survived by Jule, his wife of 49 years, four children and nine grandchildren.
Noreen Deane-Moran ’64MAT, ’68M.A., ’82Ph.D. displayed a tireless enthusiasm for teaching, sharing her love of the written word with thousands of students over four decades on the faculty. A teaching professor emerita of English literature, she died February 11 at age 83.
Deane-Moran spent her career in classrooms, teaching in New York high schools as a young adult and later at John Adams High School in South Bend.
She began teaching in Notre Dame’s Department of English in 1982 and became a dedicated faculty member, attending all department meetings, guest lectures and social events, recalls Valerie Sayers, a professor emerita of English.
Although Deane-Moran’s specialty was Medieval literature, she primarily taught general English courses to English majors and nonmajors. “She loved teaching the novel, from the 19th century to contemporary literature,” Sayers says. “She was not a narrow specialist. She loved being around literature, film and art.”
The New York City native embraced South Bend, while never giving up her love of her hometown. For more than three decades, she taught English as a Second Language to international graduate students. She took these students and their families on cultural outings around the South Bend area and encouraged them to make dishes from their home countries to bring to gatherings at her house on the city’s Near West Side.
Deane-Moran was staunchly dedicated to her community and helped establish a neighborhood association there in 1978, serving as its president for decades. She enjoyed flowers, reading late into the night, Shakespeare and shrimp pizzas from Rocco’s.
She continued teaching literature until her retirement from Notre Dame in 2022.
Her husband of nearly 49 years, Dennis Moran ’76Ph.D., managing editor emeritus of Notre Dame’s The Review of Politics, died in 2019. She is survived by her son.
Stephen Silliman, who devoted his life to water quality issues at sites around the globe, declared that Americans have civil engineers as much as doctors to thank for the sharp decline in the United States’ mortality rate since the mid-19th century.
In modern times, “we have no fear — or maybe just a tiny bit of fear — but we have no real fear of turning on a water faucet and drinking out of it,” he said in a Notre Dame Magazine interview in 2009.
Silliman, a professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering and earth sciences, died March 31. He was 68.
Born in Chicago, he studied at Princeton University and the University of Arizona before joining the Notre Dame faculty in 1986. Heavily involved in international development projects, he took dozens of Notre Dame students to Haiti in the 1990s to help drill and repair water wells and to train teams of Haitian well-drillers to provide safe drinking water. He began working in sub-Saharan Africa in 1998, drilling water wells in Benin and teaching and collaborating with researchers at colleges in that region. He traveled widely to share his Benin research.
Silliman was frequently honored, twice earning the College of Engineering’s Outstanding Teaching Award as well as the University’s highest recognitions for service to peace, human rights and social justice.
After retiring from Notre Dame in 2012, Silliman became dean of the College of Engineering at Gonzaga University. From 2021 to 2024, he was dean of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math at Trevecca Nazarene University in Nashville, Tennessee.
His hobbies included biking, mountain hikes and nature photography.
Silliman is survived by his wife, Julie ’78, and three sons.
Albert Miller was a friendly and outgoing professor known to preface his comments with the self-deprecating phrase: “I’m just a poor boy from Nebraska.” A professor emeritus of chemical and biomolecular engineering, he died April 5 at age 86.
After finishing high school, Miller borrowed $1,000 from a banker friend and enrolled at the Colorado School of Mines, where he studied metallurgical engineering and became the first person in his extended family to earn a bachelor’s degree.
Doctoral studies at Iowa State University led to two years at Ames National Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy facility, then a year teaching at the University of Alberta before he came to Notre Dame in 1967, the start of a 41-year career at the University.
Miller’s early research focused on magnetism and magnetostriction in rare earth compounds, the basis for high-energy permanent magnets that are now widely used in electric motors and disk drives.
Always interested in electronics, Miller purchased a kit in 1975 and built an Altair 8800, a groundbreaking microcomputer. That enthusiasm for computers played a significant role in his research and teaching for the next 15 years, says Paul McGinn ’80, ’83M.S., ’84Ph.D., a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.
Miller played a lead role in creating an Apple computer laboratory in a basement room in Fitzpatrick Hall of Engineering and taught undergraduates to learn about phase diagrams by programming in BASIC. For Junior Parents Weekend, he set up a printer to generate dot-matrix “pictures” of students and their parents. “It was an early introduction for kids who were enthused about the idea of using personal computers,” McGinn recalls.
In a similar effort, he set up a computer facility in Cushing Hall of Engineering that produced interactive video disks used for training in industry.
He was a painstaking classroom teacher and mentor who taught Engineering Concepts, a computer class taken by all freshman engineering students during the 1980s. Before big tests in any of his classes, it wasn’t uncommon to see undergraduates lined up 10 deep outside Miller’s office to talk with him about their studies.
His hobbies included gardening and beekeeping, and he loved to travel, particularly in Central and South America.
He is survived by Gail Rebecca, his wife of 37 years.
As a boy living in Arlington, Virginia, Eugene Henry ’54, ’55M.S., learned to take apart and reassemble radios and clocks, a gift he parlayed into part-time work repairing electronics for neighbors and later expanded into a research and teaching career specializing in control systems, simulation and computer design.
A professor emeritus of electrical engineering and computer science, Henry died May 20 at age 92.
His childhood interests led him to study electrical engineering at Notre Dame, where he also participated in the Air Force ROTC program. He spent two years on active duty in the Air Force, then earned his doctorate at Stanford University.
Henry joined the faculty in 1960 and taught for 42 years. He received the John A. Kaneb Award for Undergraduate Teaching in 1999.
“He had such a depth of knowledge,” recalls Arun Rodrigues ’01, ’03M.S., ’06Ph.D., a former student. “He was very friendly and had a sense of humor, but he was also very studious and conscientious. Even as an emeritus professor, he gave full diligence.”
A skilled musician who enjoyed travel and the arts, Henry played trombone in his high school marching band, which performed at President Harry S. Truman’s inaugural parade in 1949. At Notre Dame he participated in the marching and concert bands and later played in community ensembles, right up to his final concert with the University Band last year.
Never forgetting his roots, Henry was also a talented handyman who could fix virtually anything from kitchen appliances to automobiles.
He is survived by Alice, his wife of 70 years, six children, 13 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.