Tom, as he was known by his friends, suddenly passed away in April after a brave fight against an aggressive form of liver cancer diagnosed in November 2018. He leaves a profound legacy that has touched students, the academic community, and the peoples he came to know from Andean South America to Iberia, individuals and communities he closely studied for decades.
From the beginning Tom was interested in the variety of human existence. He initiated university studies in the fields of biology, ecology, and ethology at Eastern Michigan University in 1969, then continued in a generalized BA program at the University of Michigan, graduating in 1973 with specializations in philosophy and human geography. At Michigan Tom took classes with Andeanist anthropologists John Earls and Michael Taussig and developed a love for the Andes. In 1974 he entered the program in sociocultural anthropology at the University of Chicago, studying under the...
