Al died Dec. 12, 2020, in Portland, Maine, after contracting COVID-19 at the memory-care facility where he resided. He was 75.

Born July 12, 1945, in Santa Monica, Calif., he graduated from the California Institute of Technology with a bachelor’s degree in 1967 and earned a Ph.D. in physics from Princeton in 1974. Al was employed by the University of Maine at Farmington, first teaching physics and then joining UMF’s information technology department, where he served until his retirement in 2010 as the manager of network and server systems. An accomplished musician, Al was principal cellist with the UMF Orchestra.

Al had a special affection for the UMF foreign exchange program with Komi State Pedagogical Institute in Syktyvkar, Russia, teaching there several times and hosting exchange professors. Al lived with conviction in pursuit of social justice, beginning with conscientious objection against the Vietnam War. In the 1980s he was a driving force in founding and sustaining the Western Maine Peace Action Workshop.

Predeceased by his wife, Lee, Al is survived by his son, Patrick Liddy; stepson Jesse Sharkey and his two sons; and Al’s three brothers, Robert, Peter, and Richard.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.