GS Class of 1990

Mojtaba Rajaee ’90 ScM, ’92 PhD, of Brookfield, Wisc.; Oct. 21, of metastatic squamous cell cancer to the lungs. After emigrating to the U.S. and earning an education, he worked as a mechanical engineer at Harley-Davidson. He also previously worked as an engineer at Zebra Corp. and Hewlett-Packard and taught as an adjunct professor at URI, UW-Milwaukee, and Marquette University. He was a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He enjoyed bird watching, playing table tennis and chess, and listening to famous Iranian musician Mohammad-Reza Shjarian. He is survived by his wife, Zahra; daughter Sareh Rajaee ’11 MD; a son; and a granddaughter.  

Edward G. Gray ’90 AM, ’96 PhD, of Tallahassee, Fla.; Dec. 22, of a heart attack while mountain biking. He spent his career teaching at Florida State University, rising to the rank of full professor and department chair. He published four books of American history and was coeditor of the Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution. At the time of his death he had begun writing two more books. He enjoyed sports, attended Pilates classes, and taught himself the banjo. He is survived by his wife, Stacey Rutledge ’92 MAT; a daughter; a son; his parents; two brothers; his mother and father-in-law; a sister-in-law; a brother-in-law; and 10 nieces and nephews. 

David R. Jarraway ’90 PhD, of Ottawa, Canada; Mar. 5, of cancer. After Brown he was appointed adjunct professor in English at St. John’s University (Minn.). He subsequently returned to Canada to teach at the University of Ottawa for 27 years, specializing in Modern American Literature and Film Studies. He retired in 2018. In retirement he published three books on American Modernism and edited an anthology of essays. He played flute with the Thunder Bay Symphony for several years before taking up the study of the cello and joining the Parkdale Orchestra. He had a love for learning and most recently joined the faculty of the lifelong learning program at Carleton University. He is survived by his husband, Ian McDonald; three sisters; two brothers-in-law; and several nieces and nephews.

Devasis Chatterjee ’90 PhD, of Mansfield, Mass.; Nov. 9. He is survived by his wife, Cynthia; a son, a brother; and six nieces
and nephews.

Alta Mae Stevens ’90 AM, ’98 PhD, of Falmouth, Mass.; Feb. 20. She retired from a career as a high school English teacher. She was a member of the Falmouth Bikeways Committee and the Woods Hole Theater Company and was a photographer and reporter for the Woods Hole Weekly. For many years she was a volunteer at Falmouth Service Center. She is survived by four children and five grandchildren.

Nancy E. Olsen Ross ’90 AM, of Kingston, R.I.; June 14, from mesothelioma. After graduating high school, she hitchhiked around Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, and remained in Norway as a nanny for a while. She graduated from Marietta College in 1962 and served two years in the Peace Corps in Thailand. She married and then worked at America’s first Job Corps Center for two years teaching high school dropouts in Kentucky. She returned to Rhode Island in 1968 and raised a family in Kingston, with the exception of living one year in Indonesia from 1982 to 1983. Throughout her adult life, she taught reading and English. She received two English as a Second Language (ESL) master’s degrees,  one from Rhode Island College and a second from Brown. Nancy worked 26 years in South Kingstown’s public school system. In her free time, she volunteered with South Providence Neighborhood Ministries and spent four summers in a girl’s orphanage in Romania. She is survived by her husband, Neil; three children; a daughter-in-law; four grandchildren; and two brothers.

Joseph J. Basile ’90 AM, ’92 PhD, of Baltimore; June 15, from a brain tumor. He had been a professor of art history at the Maryland Institute College of Art since 1994 and served as associate dean of liberal arts. He was an associate director of the Brown excavations of the Petra Great Temple in Jordan and he also excavated sites in Greece and Italy. He enjoyed cooking, traveling, visiting museums, and rooting for New York sports teams. He is survived by his wife, Monica; two children; his mother; a brother and sister-in-law; and nieces and a nephew.

Derrick S. Best ’90 AM, of Syracuse, N.Y.; Feb. 22, 2018. During his tenure at the Univ. of Maryland, he was an academic advisor for the African-American Studies Program, an admissions counselor, and director of student affairs for the College of Arts and Humanities. At Drexel Univ. in Philadelphia he served as the assistant dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Later he returned home to Syracuse to join the family real estate business working as a multi lines representative, where he remained until he became too ill to work. He was a 14-year member of Kappa Alpha Psi and is survived by his parents, a sister, and several family members.