Beautiful obituary for graduate student Jordan Roth, written by his family.
On December 14th, 2021, our dearest Jordan Daniel Roth ended his life.
Jordan had an impact on so many lives, and everyone will remember him in their own way. He was amazingly brilliant, witty, sweet, and endearingly quirky. Truly, he was unlike anyone else, always unapologetically himself.
From his earliest moments, Jordan was a driven scholar. His specialty was physics, which he pursued through a Ph.D. and was set to complete in Spring of 2022 at the age of 26. His research sent him around the world, from Vancouver, BC to Brookhaven National Labs in New York to the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland. His academic passions didn’t stop with quantum chromodynamics. He loved learning linguistics and phonetics, and he took time to learn French, German, and Spanish.
There was so much more to Jordan than just his identity as a learner. He took to practical physical activities, like martial arts, long runs, and hundreds of at-home push-ups. Above his martial arts talents were his caring eyes and warm smile, which always came forward when he was playing with his niece Sonia Grace. Jordan saw value in everything. He never took more than he needed, made use of every scrap, and donated generously to causes he believed in. Jordan was introspective, humble, and eternally good-hearted.
We found such great comfort when we met with his fellow graduate students at the University of Michigan. They told us so many wonderful stories of Jordan; he was a leader, a friend, and a mentor to all.
As his family, we ask for any who wish to give donate to The JED Foundation, which focuses on suicide prevention for young adults. Here is a link to a GoFundMe, which sends 100% of donations directly to The JED Foundation: https://gofund.me/f97b1ec4
There are no words to describe how missed Jordan will be by his family and friends.
