from Mark Bedworth

I met Sam a few times around the turn of the millennium. I particularly remember attending one of his lectures at UCL on HMMs and their generalisations; despite having worked with them myself for 15 years or more by then. I expected to learn nothing and attended just to say “hi”. How wrong I was! His enthusiasm for teaching and his joy of knowledge shone through the whole lecture and reminded me why we all liked the subject, why we all liked the intellectual challenge, and why we all liked Sam. A decade later and I still recommend his papers as a model of explanation: how to make something complicated and impenetrable seem simple and enjoyable – a rare quality indeed. I only learnt of Sam’s untimely death today and feel so sad that his family and our community have lost such a special guy. Remembered always.