Hayes Lamont succumbed to metastatic synovial cell sarcoma on February 3, 1998, after a long and heroic battle. Having been first diagnosed in 1960, Hayes was the first to survive this deadly form of cancer for so long a time.
He never strutted his achievements. His passions were to contribute to the betterment of the earth's environment and to improve the social environments of people. He used his ability as a PhD in biology, coupled with his MS in computer science, for the first, and his position as chairman of membership of the New England chapter of the NAACP for the second.
During our college career, Hayes majored in English and played on the varsity soccer team. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Following graduation, he entered Harvard Medical School. During that course, he changed to the field of biology. This decision was, in part, based on his diagnosis and prognosis for a short time left on earth. He earned his PhD in 1968. For the next two years, he was a research fellow at Harvard. For the next decade, Hayes taught microbiology at Suffolk University. During the eighties, he returned to Harvard (Harvard Forest) as a research fellow to study the nitrogen fixation process.
In the early nineties, Hayes decided, to make his best contribution to improve the environment, he needed to understand and use the tools provided by computers. He enrolled as a full-time student in computer science at Northeastern University, earned his MS in 1991. His last job was as the database administrator of environmental quality for the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority. In this capacity, he was able to employ his skills in biology, along with his programming capability, to measure the progress actually achieved in the improvement of the water quality of Boston Harbor.
Our heartfelt sympathies go out to his wife, Izolde, and their children, Juliet, Beth '84, and Christopher.