Memories of Ted Madden from EAPS alumnus Randall Mackie.

Randall (Randy) Mackie ’91, one of Ted Madden’s final graduate students, continues to give to the Theodore Madden Fellowship Fund, which he has supported consistently with his annual giving since 1999.

“I give in honor of Ted,” says Randy, currently a research geophysicist with CGG in San Francisco. “Ted Madden was a true friend to all his students, as well as a scientific mentor. Mike Bergman and I were his last PhD students. He’d invite all of us over for dinner at his home, or we’d sometimes go in a group to watch performances of Shakespeare in the Park on a warm summer evening—maybe taking along a bottle of port and some roasted almonds. He loved to play sports, sometimes on the same intramural teams as his students. On the basketball court, running into Ted was like running into a brick wall! Ted was also a real Renaissance scientist, who covered a very broad area of science. You don’t really see his kind any more as these days people specialize so early. While Ted received his Ph.D. in induced polarization, he and his students went on to study a diverse range of topics including electromagnetics, seismology, gravity waves, plasma physics, and random networks.”

Mackie, who received support from a fellowship fund as an EAPS graduate student, thinks it is important to give today’s students the same opportunities. But he, and some of his peers, were surprised to learn that it now takes about $1.8M in an endowed fellowship fund to generate enough income to support an MIT graduate student in full, so he has promised to continue his support.

“EAPS is lucky to have loyal alums like Randy Mackie who continue supporting these funds year after year,” says Angela Ellis, EAPS Senior Development Officer. “Together we can keep building the Fund to support our Madden fellows—it’s a great way to continue Professor Madden’s legacy.”

This year’s Theodore Madden Fellow is Ms. Ekaterina Bolotskaya, studying geophysics with her advisor, Professor Brad Hager.

Story Image: Randall Mackie as a graduate student placing long-term monitoring electrodes with Madden in 1996.  Photo courtesy Randall Mackie.