Donald Wyman, UCSD Associate Dean, Dead at 40

Services were held Wednesday for Donald L. Wyman, associate dean of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at UC San Diego, who died Sunday at his University City home after a seven-month bout with cancer. He was 40.

Wyman, a native of Boston, came to UCSD in 1981 as public affairs director and associate director at the university’s Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies. After five years in that position, he was named associate dean of the new graduate school last year.

“Don had a unique combination of skills: academic research on the Pacific Region, administrative experience and familiarity with UC San Diego, San Diego and the state,” said Peter Gourevitch, dean of the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies.

“Don was thoughtful, perceptive and warm,” said Gourevitch. “He will be sorely missed. His loss is a tragedy for his family and for the university.”

Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, said, “Don Wyman’s all too brief tenure as associate director of the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies was marked by many important accomplishments. His writing on Mexican economic history and U.S. policy toward Mexico were seminal contributions that continue to be sited by scholars around the world.

“He was a person of rare creativity, sensitivity and dynamism. His loss to the profession and to Latin American studies at UC San Diego will be deeply felt,” Cornelius said.

Wyman had a doctorate in history from Harvard University and was awarded national fellowships from the Danforth Foundation and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.

He was the editor of “Mexico Economic Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities,” published by the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, and co-edited the forthcoming book, “Development Strategies in Latin America and East Asia.”

His research included studies of congressional decision-making in the United States, the debt crisis and financial institutions in Mexico, and an interest in the development issues in the countries of the Pacific Basin.

Wyman is survived by his wife, Barbara; his children, James, 8, and Meredith, 4, of San Diego; his mother, Evelyn Law of Los Angeles, and his sister, Judith Greenberg of Tempe, Ariz.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Donald L. Wyman Memorial Fund at the UC San Diego Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, or the Cancer Center Foundation at UC San Diego Medical Center.