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Memorials: Palo Alto Friends Meeting

Paul Ruhlen

Date of birth

June 2, 1966

Date of death

June 4, 2023

Meeting

Palo Alto Friends Meeting

Memorial minute

Paul Ernest Ruhlen was born in Lawrence, Kansas and grew up in Baldwin City. He graduated from Baldwin High School as a National Merit scholar in 1984. His undergraduate education at Michigan State University consisted of two bachelor's degrees, one in general humanities and the other in computer science engineering.
HIS WORK
While at Michigan State University, Paul worked his way through college by participating in an engineering co-op program, which gave him an opportunity to complete six-month internships for several major corporations, including IBM and Kodak. He graduated from college in 1990 and moved home to Kansas to begin his career. He worked as a software engineer for PPG Biomedical Systems Division, a medical devices company in Lenexa, Kansas. As the company changed names and ownership through the 1990s, Paul was promoted several times and relocated for three years to Jupiter, Florida.
After working as a senior software engineer for some time, Paul decided to change career paths and entered graduate school with plans for a career in academia. From 1999 to 2001, he earned a master's degree in computer science at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. In the fall of 2001, he moved to Baltimore, Maryland and began a doctoral program in computer science at Johns Hopkins University.
His specialization within the computer science programs at Stanford and Johns Hopkins was Natural Language Processing, which deals with the problem of teaching computers to understand and produce ordinary human languages rather than artificial programming codes. Paul's studies in this area spanned the fields of computer science, linguistics, and psychology. He even studied Chinese language at Johns Hopkins to gain an understanding of how a non-Western language works at the structural level.
At both Stanford and Johns Hopkins, Paul worked as a teaching assistant for large undergraduate courses, in which his duties included leading discussion sessions, individual tutoring, grading assignments, and occasionally writing and giving class lectures. Although most graduate students find such work to be the lowest-paid and least-rewarding stage of their careers, after a decade working in industry, Paul found in it confirmation of his love and talent for teaching as a profession.
Even at the outset of his academic career, Paul had achieved co-authorship of several publications.  As an undergraduate at Michigan State University, he co-authored a series of concordances to the works of Charles Darwin, published by Cornell University Press.  At Johns Hopkins, he participated in a cutting-edge summer research workshop that resulted in two peer-reviewed publications of the highest caliber.
HIS MUSIC
Paul's lifelong avocation was music and theater, especially piano. He studied piano from the age of six and continued his musical training through college. In addition to learning the classical solo repertoire, he accompanied school choirs from junior high on, including a number of years as accompanist for the Men's Glee Club at Michigan State University.  He also played percussion in his junior and senior high school bands, excelling also as a soloist on the marimba.
In both high school and college, Paul was involved in numerous theatrical productions, sometimes onstage and sometimes in the orchestra pit.  After college, he continued to pursue this passion through frequent involvement in community theater. Too many to list here, his shows in both Kansas City and West Palm Beach areas included Into the Woods, My Fair Lady, Little Shop of Horrors, Sweeney Todd, The Sound of Music, and The World Goes Round.
Paul's most absorbing and fruitful role was as musical director for several shows, in which capacity he was responsible for all vocal and instrumental aspects of a production.  He often spoke of this work as a form of ministry, bring an ethos of respect, discipline, integrity, and love -- for the material and the performers -- to the very secular world of the amateur stage.
HIS FAITH
Raised in the United Methodist Church by his father, an ordained minister, Paul's personal spiritual path led him to Quakerism while he was a college student. He became a member of Penn Valley Friends Meeting in Kansas City and served them as Clerk before moving to Florida. He was a regular attender of Meetings in both Florida and California.
Paul's Quakerism was closely wedded to his views on social and economic justice. He was committed to non-violence and the peaceful resolution of conflict.  Even in college, he refused on principle to use his computer skills in the more lucrative industry of defense contracting. He thought globally and acted locally, eating a vegetarian diet for the last several years of his life, calling his legislators regular, and taking pains to recycle his garbage wherever he lived. His was a quiet and steady witness to deeply felt beliefs.
Paul was a well-known and active participant in Young Adult Quaker circles. In the southeast and on the West Coast, he often traveled to regional gatherings of Young Friends and once served as Clerk of their New Year's gathering. His most influential role within the Quaker community was with the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a lobbying group in Washington that works to remind legislators of the ethical and social impact of their decisions.  Paul became deeply involved with FCNL and most recently served for two years as Clerk of its Policy Committee during a project that demanded much from him in the way of time, travel, energy, and leadership skills.
HIS STRUGGLES
During the last year or so of Paul's life, he struggled with chronic depression.  His symptoms included a gradual descent into isolation and inertia, making it difficult for him to study, work, or pursue his usual interests. He stopped attending Quaker Meeting, rarely played the piano, and fell out of touch with many friends and relatives. Eventually, he found it impossible to keep up with his doctoral program, and he decided to take a leave of absence from Johns Hopkins University. With help from family, he moved back to Kansas and lived with his father for about six weeks.
Throughout his illness, Paul continued to hope for and work towards recovery.  He availed himself of the mental health support services on campus, and when that failed to help, he found through careful research and investigation a different psychiatrist in Baltimore. After his return to Kansas, he sought treatment at the Bert Nash Center in Lawrence. As with everything he did in life, he was thorough and persistent in his efforts to find solutions to a complex problem.
Paul told us on repeated occasions that he never considered suicide, and indeed it was an undiagnosed heart condition, rather than depression, that caused his sudden and unexpected death. As we struggle to comprehend and accept his passing, we can find some comfort in the knowledge that he spent the last six weeks of his life surrounded again by loving family and showing signs of a renewed ability to enjoy life. He met friends and family for social events and started going to movies and poetry readings. In the last month or so, Paul and his father began an evening ritual that involved Paul playing the piano and talking with Ralph about the music he was playing. He started a volunteer job with Habitat for Humanity, and on the morning of his death he was scheduled to audition to read books for the blind.
Paul was preceded in death by his mother, Phyllis Louise Mellenbruch Ruhlen, who died in 1972.  He is survived by his father, Dr. Ralph Lester Ruhlen, of Baldwin City, Kansas; four brothers, two sisters, eight nephews, six nieces, one grandniece, and many aunts, uncles, and cousins.