I just learned that a longtime supporter of the blog and a reader-turned-real-life-friend, Alex Small, passed away yesterday after a battle with brain cancer (diagnosed in April).
Alex was smart, funny, and passionate about his students and his work as a professor of physics at Cal Poly Pomona (edit on 12/23: in memoriam for Alex in CPP News). Here is a nice recent article about his life and career in honor of his lifetime achievement award from the OSSC.
Alex wrote eloquently and prolifically about problems in academia. Here are the links to some of his published essays.
CHE: https://www.chronicle.com/author/alex-small
IHE: https://www.insidehighered.com/node/5902
Heterodox Academy: https://heterodoxacademy.org/authors/alex-small/
More of his writing can be found on his blog Physicist at Large.
Alex also wrote science fiction, much of it under the pen name R. S. Alexander. Below are some of his short stories.
https://www.abyssapexzine.com/2019/03/a-missed-diversion/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01835-y
https://365tomorrows.com/2016/09/24/revise-and-resubmit/
Goodbye, Alex. You will be missed.
xykademiqz 
Oh no, that’s so awful! 😦
😭
Oh, how awful. I’m so sorry to hear it. Thanks for letting us know.
Thanks so much for posting this. I read several of his pieces and was really impressed by his thoughtfulness. A real loss.
That is sad. I was worried when I hadn’t seen him .. around .. recently. Now I know why.
Alex is a friend from grad school. As a young, blonde woman, I didn’t feel particularly creeped out or offended by him, even when he presented me with challenging ideas, which I really appreciated. In fact, this made me feel respected. Later, when we were both professors, his dedication to science and teaching was clear in his work, words, and actions. He will be missed.
I was Alex’s classmate and friend as teenagers…we shared a passion for being geeks in general and also for messing with our high school physics teacher. We’d catch up every few years around the holidays…found the announcement from CPP when I went to make sure I had the correct email address. Rest easy, my friend. You were one of the good guys.