Carnegie Mellon Professor's Dream-Filled Life Ends At 47

Randy Pausch, a terminally ill professor whose earnest farewell lecture at Carnegie Mellon University became an Internet phenomenon and best-selling book that turned him into a symbol for living and dying well, died Friday at his home in Chesapeake, Va., of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 47.

The speech last fall was part of a series Carnegie Mellon called "The Last Lecture," where professors were asked to think about what matters to them most and give a hypothetical final talk.

Only in Pausch's case, the popular professor really was facing death - and he talked about what his childhood dreams had taught him about life in a 76-minute speech titled "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams."

"It's not about how to achieve your dreams, it's about how to lead your life," Pausch told the audience. "If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, the dreams will come to you."

Pausch's lecture began with him standing before a screen beaming down chilling CT images of the tumors in his liver under the title "The Elephant in the Room." He said he had recently been told he had no more than six months of good health left.

"I'm in really good shape. In fact, I am in better shape than most of you," Pausch said, dropping to the floor to do push-ups.

His childhood dreams included writing an article in the World Book encyclopedia ("I guess you can tell the nerds early"), winning big stuffed animals at the amusement park, being Captain Kirk of "Star Trek" and playing in the NFL.

He did write for World Book, on virtual reality; talked his way into a flight on the NASA "vomit comet" plane that simulates the effect of weightlessness; and amassed a herd of jumbo stuffed animals. He met William Shatner, who played Kirk on "Star Trek."

He recalled applying to be a Disney imagineer, and getting back "the damn nicest go-to-hell letters I've ever gotten." But the rejection didn't discourage him and he wound up doing design work for Disney.

"The brick walls are not there to keep us out, the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something," he said. "Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop the OTHER people."

As for the NFL, he didn't meet that goal - but he noted how youth football taught him such valuable lessons as the need to learn the fundamentals. And after his lecture last fall, the Pittsburgh Steelers invited him to take part in a practice, which was "fantastic beyond my wildest dreams," he said.

Pausch's message and story were so powerful they landed him on "Oprah" and other TV shows.

Yet Pausch insisted that both the spoken and written words were designed for an audience of three - his children, then 5, 2 and 1.

"I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children," Pausch wrote in his book.

In April, the book "The Last Lecture" was published and leaped to the top of the nonfiction best-seller lists, where it remained this week. The book deal was reported to be worth more than $6 million.

Pausch dictated the book to co-author Jeffrey Zaslow, a Wall Street Journal writer, by cell phone, and Zaslow recalled Friday that he was "strong and funny" during their collaboration.

"It was the most fun 53 days of my life because it was like a performance," Zaslow said. "It was like getting 53 extra lectures."

He recalled that Pausch became emotional when they worked on the last chapter, though, because that to him was the "end of the lecture, the book, his life."

A professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design, Pausch was recognized as a pioneer of virtual reality research and became known on campus for his flamboyance and showmanship as a teacher and mentor.

Born in 1960, Pausch received his bachelor's degree in computer science from Brown University and his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon. He taught at the University of Virginia from 1988 to 1997, when he came to Carnegie Mellon.

He co-founded Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center, a master's program for bringing artists and engineers together. He also created an animation-based teaching program called Alice, designed to teach computer programming to high school and college students.

In February, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences in California announced the creation of the Dr. Randy Pausch Scholarship Fund for university students who pursue careers in game design, development and production.

He is survived by his wife, Jai, and their three children, Dylan, Logan and Chloe; his mother, Virginia Pausch of Columbia, Md.; and a sister, Tamara Mason of Lynchburg, Va.

In a statement Friday, his wife thanked those who sent messages of support and said her husband was proud that his lecture and book "inspired parents to revisit their priorities, particularly their relationships with their children."