Randy Pausch

Randolph Frederick "Randy" Pausch was an American professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who rose to fame following his talk entitled 'The Last Test: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams' shortly after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He is a specialist in computer science, human interaction with computers, and was an outstanding researcher who worked on various projects with Adobe, Google, EA, and Walt Disney. Throughout his career, he had established CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) in partnership with his colleague Don Marinelli. His career changed completely in September 2006 when he began to suffer from serious health problems. Tested for pancreatic cancer at the age of 46, Randy Pausch found himself reevaluating his health and career. Having achieved many of his childhood dreams, he decided to share all his knowledge and experience by living a happy and healthy life with his students before it was too late. So on September 18, 2007, Pausch introduced the 'Last Lecture' which was recorded and widely distributed on social media, making the anonymous professor a celebrity of sorts. The popularity of his talk also led him to write a book with the same name which started out as the best seller.