Susan Neiman Offner

Sue grew up in East New York (Brooklyn), and Hackensack, NJ, the daughter of working-class, left-wing Jewish parents. She loved to tell her children and grandchildren stories about her family, sharing memories of her paternal grandparents’ candy store in the Bronx, her maternal grandmother’s bawdy sense of humor, and the political repression her parents faced during the McCarthy period. From an early age, she was interested in science. She won a full scholarship to Brown University (then Pembroke) where she majored in biology, and in 1972, earned a Ph.D. in the same field from MIT. She was one of only two women in her graduate program, a lifelong feminist and an advocate for women in science.

Sue spent the next 43 years teaching high school biology in the Plymouth, Milton, and Lexington public schools. She became an influential figure shaping high school biology education nationally. Having studied genetics and evolution at a moment when those fields were exploding, she spent her career translating current scholarly research into lessons and labs accessible to teenagers. She published dozens of articles in The American Biology Teacher, helped to redesign the national Advanced Placement Biology exam, and produced a “Plain English Map of the Human Chromosomes” that became widely used in US classrooms. Sue was proud to see her students win state and national prizes for genetics research projects, and she earned teaching recognitions from the Siemens Foundation and the Massachusetts Association of Science Teachers.

Sue met her husband, Carl, in 1968 when they were graduate students active in the movement against the Vietnam War. Both belonged to Students for a Democratic Society, and Sue was a draft counselor for the Boston Draft Resistance Group. They became public school teachers, union activists in the Massachusetts Teachers Association, and lifelong defenders of public education as a cornerstone of a just society.

Moving to Sudbury in 1985, Sue and Carl became members of Congregation Beth El and the Sudbury Democratic Town Committee. They loved attending concerts by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Skyping with their granddaughters together. Sue remained politically active throughout her life, volunteering for and donating to candidates including Gerry Studds, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders.

Sue was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in the fall of 2014, and with the support of her family battled the disease for a year and a half. With generous help from her colleagues and students at Lexington High School, she continued teaching until a few months before her death. She is survived by her husband of 43 years, Carl D. Offner, children David Offner (and Tessa Warren) of Pittsburgh, Pa. and Amy C. Offner of Philadelphia, Pa., granddaughters Esme and Noa Offner, brother Martin Neiman of Los Altos, Calif., and many beloved cousins.

Funeral services will be held on Wednesday, February 17 at 11:00 a.m. at Congregation Beth El in Sudbury. Shiva will be at the Offner home on Wednesday and Thursday with Minyan at 7:30 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the American Jewish World Service.