Paul A. Martin

Paul Alan Martin, 63, a longtime resident of Albuquerque, NM and an Aerospace Physicist and Electrical Engineer (EE), passed away Thursday, April 18, 2019 after fighting Glioblastoma (GBM)brain cancer for over seven years. Median survival rate for GBM is 14-16 month. Paul beat all the odds and survived recurrent GBM (rGBM) three times. But when it came back in 2019, it grew too fast for science to help. Paul was born in Dearborn, MI to James and (Lilian) Lee on January 31st, 1956. His parents were both graduates of University of Michigan. In 1974, Paul graduated from Mayfield High School in Cleveland, OH, 4th out of a class of 550. He received a BS in Electrical Engineering (EE) from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (1978), focusing on semiconductors and GaAs. In May 1986, Paul earned his PhD in EE from the University of Illinois (U of I).
At GE Aerospace, Syracuse, NY, he worked as part of the Electronics Laboratory (E-Lab) team and collaborated with scientists communicating with Voyager’s obsolete computers as it left our solar system. During his career, he studied, researched and analyzed solar cells, lasers, semiconductor devices, hybrid vehicles, prevention of cyber-attacks, and radiation effects on satellites. He also worked for Martin Marietta, Lockheed Martin, Emcore, University of New Mexico, Mississippi State University, and as a subcontractor for the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL). At MIT, he met Desmond Tutu in Boston and spoke with Stephen Hawking at an IEEE conference in California.
He met his wife while finishing his PhD when he pulled out a chair for her broken foot. For a year, they told jokes at church, married on Saturday, November 28, 1987, and raised two children. A tall, quiet man, he never turned down cookies or ice cream. He gave his son and daughter a love of science, a sense of curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, and a desire to figure out how things work and why.
Paul had a passion for fine coffee and classical music. He took clarinet lessons from grade school all the way through his PhD. A loyal member of many church choirs, he also sang with the Syracuse Oratory Society, Syracuse, NY for over ten years. He could sight-read flawlessly and bemoaned the fact that he was only a choir voice and a bass at that. Paul loved watching his son perform in musicals around town because Stewart got the “solo” voice in the family.
He enjoyed bird watching, hiking in the mountains, riding his Italian Bianchi bike a 100+ miles on Saturdays, and took MIT online courses in stats and calculus for fun. He liked star gazing with his kids and taught them the location of the planets and constellations. He loved watching the moon peak over the top of the Sandia’s and purchased special glasses for friends to watch solar eclipses. Because of his excellent writing skills, he proofread his wife’s articles and edited colleagues’ papers who were non-native English speakers. He enjoyed making ice cream, Saturday morning pancakes, and annoying his family with a constant barrage of puns and one-liners.
In March 2018, Paul and his family started: “A Survivors Guide to GBM (Glioblastoma)” on Facebook to share information about this rare and deadly cancer--only 5.5% of GBM patients survive 5 years. Brain cancer experts emphasize that long-term survivors (LTS), such as Paul (7+ yrs.), are outliers. A genome assay test (2018) showed his 4th rGBM tumor had a rare mix of mutations that could explain his LTS status. His brain was preserved and donated to MD Anderson for further research to continue his fight against GBM.
Paul was preceded in death by his mother and father, Lee and James, who were married for 50 years. He is survived by his wife of 31 years, Beverly Leesman (artist, writer); two adult children, Danielle (biochemist, programmer) and Stewart (artist, writer, programmer) of Albuquerque, NM; a brother, Curt (Clare, married 36 years) (Houston, TX); a niece and a nephew. FRENCH - University helped with the funeral arrangements. A Family & Friends Remembrances will start at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, May 25, 2019, at St Chad’s Episcopal Church, 7171 Tennyson Street NE, Albuquerque, NM, 87122. The service will follow at 11:00 am. In lieu of flowers, make donations to the Musella Foundation for Brain Tumor Research and Information to fund GBM research in memory of Paul Martin: https://www.virtualtrials.com/Martin.cfm.