鲍歌 Paul Bao (1957 – 2016)

It is with great sadness that I received the news of Paul's unexpected passing away early January 2016. I last saw Paul mid December 2015 at USF prior to the holidays. It has been a long time since I first met Paul back in 2008 as colleague at what was then the IT Department in USF Lakeland and later USF Poly. As the IT Department was rather small we became good friends immediately. We continuously had technical discussions related to our common research interests that later became regular meetings involving other colleagues where we analyzed and planned future work. As an outcome of these meetings we jointly published with other colleagues several papers and submitted grant proposals for funding. We considered these efforts only the beginning towards future greater scientific contributions. We carpooled several times from Tampa to Lakeland. Paul always drove his old Mercedes that later became a Mini-Cooper fitting his young personality. In Tampa we regularly had office meetings with other colleagues at Starbucks as we both lacked an office at the time. During these times I had the honor of meeting his young wife. In addition to research, Paul was extremely active in the Chinese community in Tampa, where I also had the honor of meeting some of his friends. Throughout all these years I've always looked forward to chat with Paul. He was always in a good mood, joking, having a positive attitude towards everything and his future. I remember one time that we went to a meeting in St. Pete where we had lunch at a Thai restaurant. To my surprise he started ordering and joking with the owner of the restaurant in Thai. Paul was a unique person and colleague that whenever we met the day always looked brighter. I will miss you dear friend and will forever keep you in my thoughts.