Like most of you, I am still feeling shocked by this sad news about Simon. I didn’t know him well, but I am grateful for the opportunities I had to work with him. I guess the first time was in 2018, when he, Keith Bechtol, and I organized a joint RSP bootcamp for the Commissioning, DM, and Camera teams to work together. Simon was kind and he chose his words carefully. He seemed happy to engage and to work toward convergence of different approaches to make something new. I will be thinking of him as we continue to pull all the parts of Rubin together. – Steve Ritz
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Dear all, thank you for the stories and the pictures 
. Please keep them coming, his family appreciates them, as do we.
There have been questions about helping the family in a tangible way. We will be holding a fundraiser towards the children’s educational expenses - instructions on how to contribute coming soon.
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When Simon arrived in Tucson, I recall he was fascinated by the lizards.
He was an observer of Nature for sure, and there’s a picture he took from his living room at home with two roadrunners and a coyote in the same frame. In his own words, “This is too good not to share twice.”
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Simon was always willing to be in the middle of complex situations. Here is is in the middle of the first commissioning workshop.
Also always a balanced contributor to the DM leadership team - here we all are in UW in 2018 (Simon is in the middle).
I was happy to facilitate Simon’s move to Tucson (to the office next to mine) and a little back from management. He was very productive and extremely so when one considers all the people he helped along the way.
He will be missed.
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Heartbreaking news. All my sympathies to Simon’s family, friends, and colleagues. I first met him when as a student I was visiting someone at UW in Seattle. Later I applied for a job with LSST, and Simon interviewed me, twice, because due to some UW admin snafu the position had to be re-advertised. I didn’t get the job, but I will never forget how personable Simon was, and how much he cared about “taking the blame” and reassuring me to re-apply when the position needed to be advertised anew. I’ll cherish all conversations I’ve had with Simon since then, at workshops and elsewhere.
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I didn’t get to work with Simon nearly as much as I would have liked, and now I won’t get the chance any more and that is just so sad. The few times I visited UW as a postdoc I remember him being the friendliest person around - and given the extreme friendliness of everyone up there that’s really saying something! @mwv and I gravitated towards him at the Phoenix PCW when the three of us got excited about doing a big (at the time) image simulation in the LSST DESC as a data challenge pathfinder - and it was Simon’s idea to call the project “Twinkles”. I remember how delighted he had made himself by coming up with that name: it was a hugely contrived acronym that still conveyed the essence of what was most fun about the data, which was that when processed into a movie it would show all the time-variable stars and AGN flickering and, well, twinkling. I remember thinking, Yes! I wish to work with people like Simon who use all their education and cleverness to make work fun. And just remembering the look on his face when he managed to simultaneously sidle slyly and also bound excitedly up to me to tell me his idea is making me smile all over again. So, I think we should all redouble our efforts to make working on the LSST as much fun as possible, and then tell ourselves quietly in memoriam, “Well, Simon would have loved this.”
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Hey folks so we’ve started a small fundraiser towards the kids’ educational expenses for those that wish to support the family in a tangible way. You can find it here: ls.st/kskfam - please share it with your colleagues who might be interested. Any amount is fine, don’t be shy, but for those facing mental block and want to look for the answer in the back of the book, if we give $50 per person on average we’ll have a nice kitty.
The family has a memorial site here if you would like to share further thoughts Simon Krughoff's Memorial Website | Ever Loved - Gin passed on her thanks to all who shared their memories here.
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The sad news came as a big a surprise and I could not bering myself to believe it. I left Rubin more than three years ago and did not know Simon was sick. I remembered his calm demeanor and genuine smile. He was always patient and ready to help. He was so knowledgable in both astronomy and software. And I was pleasantly surprised when he told me he tried to cook a Chinese dish he really liked. He will be sorely missed.
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The Simon I knew
- always ready to help, even when the questions were so dumb.
- never afraid to speak up when he sees problems.
You will be missed!
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A few years back, in the “before times”, DMLT spent a beautiful evening at Michelle Butler’s spread outside of Champaign. I recently found this picture of Simon from these happier times in my photo reel, and as we are coming up his memorial games session at the JTM tonight I felt it might be a good time to share.
I know Simon would have secretly appreciated an “…outstanding in his field” groaner here, though he would have deadpanned the response. Miss you, man…
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