Announcements
We recently learned that Harl E. Ryder, who spent forty years on the Brown faculty before retiring in 2005, passed away in December 2019.
Ryder, well known in the Economics profession for his work on the theory of economic dynamics, served as Chair of the Brown Economics Department from 1974 to 1981. He co-authored scholarly papers with several Brown colleagues, and was for many years “the go to person” for mathematical modeling by both colleagues and graduate students. Ryder generously offered his time to help find the solutions of technical problems crucial to dozens of important papers by other Brown faculty and Ph.D. students. But generations of Brown faculty, grad students, and their children will always remember Harl in his cameo role of Santa Claus who, as the high point of departmental Christmas parties, bounded around the Robinson Hall rotunda balconies and down the metal stairways in full red and white regalia, booming out “ho, ho, ho” in a deep voice made to order for the building’s acoustics, and giving gifts to the hundreds of faculty and grad students’ children who spent a few excited moments on his lap over the years.