RE: John Vernon

From: Grossman, Michael <MGrossman_at_gc.cuny.edu>
Date: Sat, 30 Jun 2012 22:44:09 -0400

Jim and Everyone Else,

I was shocked and saddened by Jim's message below. I met John in the late 1990s. He had started to work at Pfizer while he was a PhD candidate at North Carolina State. Pfizer transferred him to New York City with the understanding that he could still obtain his PhD. So he applied to the PhD Program in Economics at the City University Of New York Graduate Center. He was admitted and attended my first class in microeconomics. A few days later he came to see me. He told me that he had just been accepted by the City University of London under an arrangement in which he would simply have to write a dissertation. On the other hand, my program would require him to repeat a significant number of courses that he had already taken at NC State. His dilemma was that he needed an external dissertation supervisor since he would be working on his dissertation in New York. He asked me to act in that role, and I agreed. His dissertation was in the area of pharmaceutical economics with an emphasis on the effects of regulation on R&D and drug prices. That area is pretty far removed from those on which I focus in my own research. So John was pretty much on his own. I read drafts of his dissertation and gave him comments, but practically all of it was unique to him. I judged him to be a highly creative and imaginative researcher. After he received the degree from London, he earned second PhD in management science from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He taught at the University of Connecticut before accepting a position at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health. He compiled a very impressive publication record, and I nominated him to be an NBER faculty research fellow, He received that appointment in 2004. Last year I was delighted to write a letter in which I recommended him for promotion to associate professor with tenure. I was even more delighted when he informed that he received the promotion and tenure earlier this spring. As Jim know, a few weeks ago, I nominated him for promotion to NBER research associate.

My family aside, nothing gives me greater satisfaction than to see my former students achieve success in their professional lives. John gave me a tremendous amount of satisfaction in that area, and I feel terrible about his loss. Mike

Michael Grossman
National Bureau of Economic Research
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________________________________
From: James Poterba [poterba_at_MIT.EDU]
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 12:31 PM
To: Jolls, Christine; Denis Healy; Grossman, Michael
Subject: Re: John Vernon

Dear Christine-
    I was very sorry to read your message, but glad that you sent it along - I was not aware of John's extremely untimely passing. I am copying Michael Grossman, who directs the Health Economics program in which John was a member. I am about to return from a trip to China but will get an email out to the HE program in the next day or two. All best wishes.
jim

On 6/28/2012 10:23 PM, Jolls, Christine wrote:
Dear Jim,
When I spoke today to my dad – my parents live in Chapel Hill and are involved in a variety of things at UNC – he mentioned to me that he had read in the UNC newspaper that NBER FRF (and UNC faculty member) John Vernon had died last week. I know that often you send around something in these sad circumstances and I hadn’t seen anything, so I thought I would mention it to you (I’m not sure how many NBER affiliates there are at UNC, so maybe no one thought to alert NBER). Naturally, I’m sorry to be writing on such a gloomy topic.
Christine

http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2012/06/professor_dies_at_age_43
Received on Sat Jun 30 2012 - 22:44:09 EDT