Susan Fera Assman ’78

Susan Fera Assman ’78 lost her battle with cancer May 30 at her home in Waltham, Massachusetts. She came to Dartmouth from Pennington, New Jersey, and lived in Cohen during her freshman year. She majored in math and graduated summa cum laude. “She was scary-brilliant,” recalled Mark Germano ’78, “so mesmerizing in discussion that I wondered how in hell I was ever admitted to the same school as she.” Susan earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1983 and an M.S. in biostatistics from the University of Massachusetts School of Public Health, Amherst in 1994. She was a principal statistician at HealthCore (formerly New England Research Institute) in Watertown, Massachusetts, where she worked for a week shy of 26 years, following a career as a mathematics professor at UMass Lowell and Regis College. Susan was the coauthor of more than 60 scientific publications and her statistical analyses of data from clinical trials will aid many patients. Those interested in arcane mathematics will appreciate that Susan had an Erdös number of 2, meaning a close collaborative distance from famed Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdös. Susan was an avid reader, a student of the English art of change ringing, an enthusiastic amateur harpsichordist, and an ardent supporter of the early music community in Boston. Susan is survived by her husband, Jeffrey (who built her a clavichord), and sister Sarah.