Recalling John Thomas

The In Memoriam for Professor John B. Thomas (On the Campus, Jan. 9) overlooked his teaching and mentoring of undergraduates. He provided invaluable advice to me on pursuing graduate education, with his advice leading to a National Science Foundation fellowship to continue my education at MIT. Elm Club had a number of electrical engineering undergraduates, and he accepted invitations to lunch at Elm and held impromptu seminars around the table with them. He and Professor Bede Liu restructured ELE 412, and the text in 1965 consisted of mimeographed sections of the book on statistical communication theory Professor Thomas was in the process of writing. He was also a regular attendee at the end-of-year picnic of the Student IEEE section, playing in the faculty-versus-students softball game.