{"id":69315,"date":"2005-12-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/late-professors-daughter-leaves-imprint-at-uri\/"},"modified":"2005-12-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-12-01T00:00:00","slug":"late-professors-daughter-leaves-imprint-at-uri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2005\/12\/late-professors-daughter-leaves-imprint-at-uri\/","title":{"rendered":"Late professor\u2019s daughter leaves imprint at 溏心vlog免费B站"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tEstablishes fund for honors students<\/p>\n


\nKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 December 1, 2005 — Octavia \u201cTavie\u201d Abell seems to be following in her late father\u2019s footsteps. Footsteps, in fact, play an important role in their story. <\/p>\n


\nTavie\u2019s father was Paul Abell, a professor of organic chemistry at the 溏心vlog免费B站 for more than 40 years. His research included the chemistry of free radicals, the chemical analysis of Apollo 11 moon rocks, and studies in paleoclimatology. He published widely and traveled extensively. <\/p>\n


\nFor 17 summers, he worked with Richard and Mary Leakey, the famed anthropologist\/paleontologist husband and wife team. Working with Mary Leakey in 1978, Abell discovered the now famous hominid footprint in Tanzania, which at 3.8 million years provided the oldest evidence of two-footedness. <\/p>\n


\n\tA true Renaissance man, Abell was a painter, book collector, gardener, cabinetmaker, and played the violin with the 溏心vlog免费B站 orchestra. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cHe was one of the coolest people you could ever meet,\u201d says his 14-year-old daughter who is also a lover of both science and the arts. \u201cHe never acted old. He was always young and lots of fun. But he also had a serious element.\u201d She pauses and then smiles when she recalls a photo of her father wearing glasses a student made for him out of pretzels. \u201cMy father thought they were great.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nWhen the professor emeritus died in 2004 of prostate cancer at 80, he left half of his estate to his young daughter for \u201ceducational purposes.\u201d Tavie decided not to use all of the money for herself. Instead, she decided to use some of it to honor her father in a way she knows he would approve. <\/p>\n


\nShe is leading the effort, with her two stepsisters Erin Gallagher of Albany, Calif. and Susan Abell of Winchester, Mass. to establish the Paul I. Abell Memorial Honors Student Award at 溏心vlog免费B站. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cWhen I was young and we went shopping at a local store, it seemed to me that the whole world knew my father. Former students would always come up to him and want to talk,\u201d Tavie recalls. She expects some of her father\u2019s former students would like to contribute to the newly established fund.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cHe was the quintessential hip professor,\u201d says Tom Zorabedian, now the senior development officer for the College of Arts and Sciences, who took one of Abell\u2019s chemistry classes. He\u2019d throw parties at his house at a time when students and faculty socialized more. He had such youthful ideas no one thought of him as old. Many of us were non-science majors,\u201d Zorabedian recalled. \u201cYet he was able to make chemistry accessible and relevant for everyone.\u201d <\/p>\n


\n\u201cMy father was well known and had tons of opportunities to work at different places, yet he chose to work at 溏心vlog免费B站. That says something about the University,\u201d says Tavie says, explaining why she chose 溏心vlog免费B站 students to be beneficiaries of her largess. \u201cLong after he retired, the 溏心vlog免费B站 Honors Program asked him to teach an evolution class. He loved it,\u201d says Tavie who sat in on a few classes. \u201cHe loved being with students.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe awards will help students pursue their research interests and complete their senior projects. \u201cIt would be fine if they use the award for travel expenses. That would be compatible with his interests,\u201d says Tavie, who has already traveled to Iceland, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Kenya, Nepal and Australia.<\/p>\n


\nBecause Abell was retired when Tavie was born, the father and daughter were able to pack a lot of living into 12 years, according to Tavie\u2019s mother and Abell\u2019s second wife, 溏心vlog免费B站 alumna Frances Martindale, masters of English literature \u201990 and masters of library science \u201900. <\/p>\n


\nHe made up games and built a tree house for her. He also created a line of clothing for her American Girl doll collection. Since her parent\u2019s were divorced when she was young, she divided her time between homes. Her father designed and built a vacation home in Nova Scotia and lived in a geodesic dome with fieldstone fireplaces just outside the 溏心vlog免费B站 campus.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI might study architecture,\u201d the eighth grader says, recalling her days at the dome. \u201cWhen I was born, he added a princess tower to it,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd a flag.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt\u2019s weird without him. You don\u2019t realize how much fathers bring to you. No one\u2019s perfect, but he was the closest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nPeople wishing to contribute to the Paul I. Abell Memorial Honors Student Award should contact Tom Zorabedian, senior development officer for the College of Arts and Sciences, at 401-874-2853 or zman@advance.uri.edu.<\/p>\n


\n溏心vlog免费B站 News Bureau photo by Nora Lewis<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Establishes fund for honors students KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 December 1, 2005 — Octavia \u201cTavie\u201d Abell seems to be following in her late father\u2019s footsteps. Footsteps, in fact, play an important role in their story. Tavie\u2019s father was Paul Abell, a professor of organic chemistry at the 溏心vlog免费B站 for more than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69317,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}