Melanie Mitchell

Abstract

In 1984 I came to graduate school at Michigan to work with Doug Hofstadter. I didn't know anything about the CS department. It was my great luck that I ended up taking John Holland's class "Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems". The class completely changed my perspective on what computer science was (and should) be about. As fellow grad student Chris Langton put it, John's view was that "The proper role of computer science is the study of computation writ large across all of nature." This idea, and John's development of it during the class, was a great epiphany for me that shaped my future career and all of my thinking about science in general. John became my co-advisor at Michigan, and did so much to support and encourage me in my work. He let me know when I had done enough for my Ph.D. (and told me it was time to get my "union card," as he called it). He recommended me for the Michigan Society of Fellows, and then invited me to join the famous BACH group during my fellowship. He also invited me to visit SFI, first for a summer, and then asked me to direct SFI's Adaptive Computation program. This led to my faculty appointment at (and hopefully life-long engagement with) the Institute. I was fortunate to became one of John's close-knit group of former Ph.D. students, all of us, including John, meeting every now and then to talk about everyone's research projects and to speculate on big questions. Our last meeting was in Fall, 2014. John, in spite of his illness, was in great spirits, and regaled us with his new ideas and enthusiasms. In addition to his great intellect, John was perhaps the most enthusiastic, cheerful, and *lively* person I've ever known. I'll miss him greatly.