Yesterday was a very difficult day for me as I got the terrible news that my thesis advisor, Prof. Mark Steiner passed away from the Corona virus. He was for me not only an advisor, but a teacher and role model. I do not have to mention his academic achievements or the ones in Torah learning, they are well known. Rather I want to share my experience as his student. From the moment I walked into his office and asked him to be my advisor until our last correspondence two months ago he was always available (and I am talking about a period of about 10 years) responding to emails immidiately and reviewing every draft with insighful comments at all times. I just found his response once five years ago commenting on a draft : "To show you how devoted an advisor you have, I took the chapter to the hospital and began to read it on Friday. .." I will not say it was easy working with him..it was not. He wanted every idea to be clear, and thorough. He told me from the beginning that he is going to be critical, and he will get straight to the point to save us time and energy, but I should not get scared from it..This is how he worked. At the same time, he always gave me a feeling that he trusted me that I could do it. He gave me direction, but allowed me to develop things my way . He did not come with agendas, he let me decide what they are. He always took sincere interest in my well being and my family, as he'd write: " let me wish you a belated mazal tov, and our best wishes for happiness—you certainly deserve it....By the way, as your advisor, I should mention that I'm sure the party was "discreet," not "discrete"

Working with him was the most amazing learning experience. I now realise how fortunate I was to be guided by such a great man. יהי זכרו ברוך

Taken from a post in Eliana's personal Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/eliana.teitlebaum/posts/10219548001863693