In Memoriam

Robert “Rob” Dean ’77, Indianapolis, April 19, 2023, at age 67. Dean and his twin brother, Randolph “Randy” Dean ’77, ’90 MBA, joined the Northwestern football team as walk-ons in 1973, following in the footsteps of their older brother, Richard “Rich” Dean ’69. Rob went on to earn a scholarship and three letters in football in the following years, as well as First-Team CoSIDA Academic All-America honors in 1976. He also earned a letter as a member of the Northwestern basketball team during freshman year. Rob and Randy competed in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal as members of the U.S. Olympic handball team. Rob graduated from Northwestern with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, then received his MBA from Stanford University. He worked for Hewlett-Packard, Adept Robotics and Eli Lilly before starting his own manufacturing company, Aristo Machines. Rob served as the Indiana central regional director of the Northwestern Alumni Admission Council from 2013 to 2018. He also gave back to the Indianapolis community. In addition to his brothers Rich and Randy, Rob Dean is also survived by his wife, Marnie; children Kieran and Alexandra; stepchildren Maxwell, Mary and Matthew; and brother Ross.

Angela Mears ’10, New York City, March 30, 2023, at age 35. Recognized for her work in advertising, Mears leaves behind a legacy of creativity, friendship, generosity and fearlessness. After graduating from Northwestern in 2010 with a bachelor’s degree in English, Mears joined the marketing and communications firm Weber Shandwick. She worked there for 11 years, most recently serving as chief creative officer of the New York office. Mears spearheaded creative work for clients across the country including Airbnb, Ikea, McDonald’s, Unilever, Sony and more. She was named a Female Frontier honoree by Campaign in 2022 and earned several awards for her work in advertising, including Cannes Lions, Eurobest, Clios and SABRE awards. Mears, who was featured in the summer 2010 Northwestern Magazine roundup of outstanding seniors, also had a lifelong passion for cooking and ran a food blog called The Spinning Plate.

Louann Hurter Van Zelst ’49, ’51 MA/MS, Glenview, Ill., Feb. 15, 2023, at age 94. After training under the tutelage of a Russian prima ballerina, Van Zelst per­formed onstage in musicals as a teen. At Northwestern, she partic­ipated in University Theatre pro­ductions and The Waa-Mu Show. Van Zelst remained involved in the Northwestern community, serving as director-at-large of the Northwestern Alumni Association; a member of the School of Speech Steering Committee; editor of Dialogue, the School of Communication magazine; and co-chair for the campaign to build Northwestern’s Sheil Catholic Center and Galvin Memorial Chapel. She received an Alumni Service Award in 1978 and served on the Northwestern Board of Trustees from 1980 to 1983. She and her husband, Theodore Van Zelst ’45, ’48 MS, funded the School of Communication’s Van Zelst Research Chair in Communication in 1981. She is survived by her children, Anne, Jean Van Zelst Bierner ’89 MA/MS and David; seven grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Cherilyn “Liv” Wright ’71, New York City, Jan. 23, 2023, at age 74. Growing up in New York City, Wright developed a passion for history, education, political activism and storytelling from a young age. At Northwestern, she was one of the student activists involved in the Bursar’s Office Takeover in 1968, a protest in which more than 100 students occupied the office in response to discriminatory campus policies in an effort to improve the Black student experience. Wright and fellow Takeover activist Barbara Perkins ’71 created a video scrapbook in 1991 that recounts the history of Black students at Northwestern in the 1960s. Wright worked as a consultant, providing services from career transition guidance to strategic planning and marketing. She produced and hosted the news and commentary call-in program Reading Between the Lines on New York’s public access channels. Her writings were featured in Tenderheaded, an anthology of the expression of culture and hair styles, as well as in the International Review of African American Art. In her later years, she ran The Wise Boudoir, a blog that explored intimacy and relationships for older adults. The essays she published on the blog were compiled into her final book, which has yet to be published. 

Arthur Pancoe ’51 MS, Vero Beach, Fla., Jan. 16, 2023, at age 97. A dedicated philanthropist, invest­ment executive and scholar, Pancoe made significant gifts to support Northwestern. He supported the creation of the Arthur and Gladys Pancoe–NorthShore University Health System Life Sciences Pavilion at Northwestern, dedi­cated to his late granddaughter, Beth Elise Pancoe. He also established the Arthur and Gladys Pancoe Professorship in Mathematics at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. He received a Merit Award in 1998 and the Northwestern Alumni Medal, the Northwestern Alumni Association’s highest honor, in 2003. Pancoe served as vice president of his family’s business, Standard Stationery Supply, and later became a stockbroker. He began investing in pharmaceu­tical firms because of his family’s history of heart disease. He attributed his ability to identify which drugs would be successful to his aptitude for reading clinical test reports, thanks to his Northwestern graduate mathematics educa­tion. In the 1960s and ’70s Pancoe took public stands against the construction of nuclear power plants in the Chicago area and against the Sentinel antiballistic missile system. He was also a strong advocate for the use of now-standard catalytic converters in cars. Pancoe and his late wife, Gladys, had two children, Mariann and Michael; and four grandchildren, Beth, Julia, Hannah Pancoe '13 and Alexander. For more on Arthur Pancoe, click here.

Photo Credit: Jim Prisching

Nancy Clague Carstedt ’62, Glenview, Ill., Jan. 3, 2023, at age 82. Carstedt became president and CEO of the Chicago Children’s Choir in 1990. She grew the orga­nization, now called Uniting Voices Chicago, from 300 members to more than 3,000 singers represent­ing 73 neighborhoods and school-based choirs across Chicago. Under Carstedt’s leadership, the choir provided music instruction in more than 44 Chicago public schools, cataloged their music collection for licensing to other groups and sent singers on performance tours around the world. Upon retirement from the choir, Carstedt became executive director at the National Alliance on Mental Illness Cook County North Suburban. During her nearly seven-year tenure, she helped transform the group from a mostly volunteer organization into a pro­fessional operation. A lifelong Chicago Cubs fan, Carstedt worked as an usher at Wrigley Field for 18 seasons. To help inspire and support others, she publicly shared her story of overcoming alcoholism and depression. Carstedt is survived by her chil­dren, Blaine, Susan and Whitney; and five grandsons.

Frank Galati ’65, ’67 MA/MS, ’71 PhD, Sarasota, Fla., Jan. 2, 2023, at age 79. A Tony Award–winning director and longtime Northwestern professor, Galati was a pivotal figure in Chicago theater. As a youth, Galati was recruited by a drama teacher to attend Northwestern’s Cherub program (now the National High School Institute) in the summer of 1960. He earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from the School of Communication, then joined Northwestern’s faculty in 1973, teaching in the Department of Performance Studies for more than 30 years before retiring in 2006. During that time, he became an ensemble member of Steppenwolf Theatre and an associate director at the Goodman Theatre, where he directed and acted in several productions. In 1988 Galati was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay adaptation of The Accidental Tourist. He won two Tony Awards in 1990 for his stage adaptation and direction of The Grapes of Wrath, which originated at Steppenwolf, and received another Tony nomination in 1998 for directing Ragtime. Most recently, he served as an artistic associate at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota. Galati was inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in November 2022. He is survived by his husband, Peter Amster, and sister, Frannie Galati Clarkson. Watch Stephen Colbert ’86, ’11 H pay tribute to Frank Galati here.

Photo Credit: Juan Davila