Richard Eric Shapiro

Richard Eric Shapiro, 68, passed away on June 29, 2024, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Richard was born in Baltimore, Maryland on August 26, 1955, to the late Albert “Obbie” and Gilda (Serkin) Shapiro. He graduated with honors in 1978 with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Maryland's division of Mathematics, Sciences and Engineering. He received a second degree in Computer Programming from New College in Florida.

Richard is survived by his mother Gilda, his three siblings, David (Linda) Shapiro, Marc Shapiro, and Randi (Mike) Weiss, plus 5 nieces and nephews and one great-niece.

Rich was an Artificial Intelligence programmer at Bolt Beranek and Newman for over thirty years. He developed intelligent analysis environments to optimize the performance and efficiency of the Arpanet, the precursor to the Internet. He applied his skills to a wide variety of interesting applications in education, virtual reality, logistics, and QoS adaptive distributed systems. His work helped many people solve difficult problems and resulted in dozens of research papers.

Rich was a mentor and a teacher and a learning partner to his friends and co-workers. At work, he taught his co-workers the value of elegance in engineering - not just solving problems but solving them well. Outside of work, Rich inspired his friends and coworkers to expand their horizons with his esoteric tastes in red wine, oolong tea, coffee, and ripe cheese.

Rich loved avant-garde classical music and early electronic music. If you felt Partch-ed, he would give you a wry smile and a raised glass of ice-cold IPA. Rich had encyclopedic recognition of jazz spanning its evolution from the scratchy old recordings of Duke Ellington to the crisp free improvisation of Cecil Taylor. The Internet, which he helped create, gave Rich the ability to explore music and collaborate with music lovers from around the world and he supported the work of many experimental musicians.

Rich's life was like the music of "A Very Short Trumpet Piece" by Morton Feldman, one of his beloved composers: full of gentle fun and subtleties. His friends and family only wish that Rich's life had outlined a longer Feldman piece for them to enjoy.

The graveside service will be held Wednesday, July 10, at 10:00am at the Netherlands Cemetery, 38 Linwood Ave, Melrose MA. A memorial observance for Richard will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to MGH Dementia Care Collaborative (dementiacarecollaborative.org).