We regret to announce the death of Professor Karen Spärck Jones FBA, Honorary Fellow of the College and Emeritus Professor of Computers and Information at the Computer Laboratory, and one of the most remarkable women in Computer Science.
Professor Spärck-Jones, who was born on 26 August 1935, had been a Fellow since February 2000 and an Honorary Fellow since October 2002. Both she and her husband Roger Needham (who had been a Fellow since 1965) were generous benefactors of Wolfson.
The President, on hearing of her death while he was abroad said, “Karen was a real star and I will miss herâ€.
Read more about the live and work of Professor Spärck Jones on the Computer Laboratory and University web sites.
I was deeply saddened to hear of Karen’s untimely death. I will remember Karen as an incisive thinker and a vigorous questioner, and this she combined with great personal warmth and charm. From my early days of research in Cambridge, I recall our lively and sometimes heated discussions, on information retrieval and natural language processing, from which I learned so much. Beyond that, I will remember Karen’s easy laugh, her staccato delivery, and her penchant for red- and white-checked shirts worn with jeans. Recently, she took me to one side, and offered sage advice on a new venture, and this proved both insightful and extremely helpful. I will miss Karen very much, as a colleague, as a mentor and as a friend.
It was very sad to hear about Karen’s death.
I remember well the way she taught us on the MPhil course back in 2001-2. What must stick to the mind of all who have ever met her are her sharp mind, her rapid speech, her direct way to give feedback, and her scrutiny. In an age where people try to impress with fancy PowerPoint animations that are often void of any novel ideas, Karen was an energetic counterpole who did not care about appearance, but wanted to understand the core of the problem, unimpressed by the hype of the day.
Karen’s work on IR lives on in every Google query issued around the world, and in the appreciation for methodology and evaluation she has instilled in her students.
It was a privilege to have known personally both her and her late husband, Roger Needham. Her lively intelligence, her warm heart, and her amazing critical facility — never fogged by sloppy thinking — will make her missed by all who ever met or heard her.
I completed my PhD at the Computer Laboratory, Cambridge University more than a decade ago. It is sad to learn about Karen’s death. Lately, Cambridge lost quite a few prominent people – Roger Needham, David Wheeler and now Karen Jones. I recalled chatting with all of them briefly in the tea room at Computer Laboratory, where faculties and researchers would mingle there. Karen strike me as a very talented individual and quick in her thoughts. I hope there will be a successor from the UK who will continue to lead and excel in her field. My condolences to her family members.