26.3602, All: Obituary: Laurie A. Stowe (1955-2015)

Wed Aug 12 17:25:01 UTC 2015

LINGUIST List: Vol-26-3602. Wed Aug 12 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.3602, All: Obituary: Laurie A. Stowe (1955-2015)

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Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2015 13:22:49
From: Monika S. Schmid [mschmid at essex.ac.uk]
Subject: Obituary: Laurie A. Stowe (1955-2015)

 It is with infinite sadness that we report the untimely death of our dear colleague, friend and mentor, Laurie A. Stowe of the University of Groningen, after a short and dramatic fight with cancer.

Laurie's career was a very international one. Born and trained in the United States (her BA was awarded from Cornell, her MA and PhD from Wisconsin-Madison, followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Rochester), she spent several years in Australia, before finally settling in the Netherlands where she was to remain for almost 25 years. The focus of her work was on the neurocognition of language and language acquisition, and on these topics she collaborated with many of the foremost scholars in the field, such as Michael K. Tanenhaus, Virginia M. Holmes and Peter Culicover – among many others. Her CV lists over 100 publications, many of them in highly prestigious outlets such as the Journal of Memory and Language, Brain and Language, NeuroImage and Second Language Research. In 1995, she was awarded a large PIONIER grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research to set up a research group in neurolinguistics in Groningen and carry out pioneering research on the neurolog
 ical basis of language. She is probably best known for her work using the ERP technique and was among the pioneers of applying this to bilingual language processing, and she also did work using fMRI and PET.

Many of her most influential and widely cited publications are collaborations with (former) PhD students of Laurie's, which is a testimony to the fact that she was an exceptional mentor and teacher. Several generations of young (and no longer so young) researchers fondly and gratefully remember her apparently limitless generosity, warmth, advice, support – and not least, hospitality. The potluck parties she regularly hosted at her house were legendary, as were her highly creative culinary efforts. Cooking was an extremely important part of Laurie's life (and shortly before her death, she donated her recipe collection to posterity, available upon request from the authors of this obituary). Laurie always enjoyed these gatherings immensely – an enjoyment which was usually not unambiguously shared by her feline housemates, who tended to view the starving hordes stampeding into their home with varying degrees of suspicion and hostility, and were always glad when the mob had left and t
 hey had Laurie back to themselves.

The kitchen was not the only sphere of Laurie's life where her creative skills received an outlet. She was highly musical, playing a range of instruments as well as singing in a choir, and possessed an extensive and sophisticated collection of recordings. She was also considerably proficient in a variety of arts and crafts. The latter suffered, much to her chagrin, from the fact that for many years she had experienced deteriorating eyesight. However, Laurie was never one to let life's adversities beat her, and she coped admirably with any such setbacks. 

What those who were close to her will probably remember best is her warmth, her kindness, and her unique brand of dry and often self-deprecating humour. Any gathering of people would always be immensely enhanced and improved through her presence – so it was a wonderful thing that she would always seek out such gatherings, and her absence now will leave a terrible void.

Towards the beginning of 2015, Laurie began to feel tired and to suffer from loss of appetite and weight loss. Several tests and exams were inconclusive, and by the time the cancer was discovered in March, it soon became evident that it was too late to fight it. Earlier this summer, after a change in medication, she regained some of her energy and was able to take a final trip to the United States and spend time with her family. Upon her return, her condition deteriorated quickly, but to the end she was continually surrounded by friends, colleagues and students. 

Laurie passed away on Aug. 6th, just two weeks after her 60th birthday. She will be very sorely missed.

Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable

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