By Maxim Tamarov, news staff
Timothy Ryan Faulkner, a financial analyst at Partners HealthCare and finance major at Northeastern, passed away on Friday, June 20 at the age of 21. The cause of his death remains unknown.
Faulkner, a fourth year student from Mahopac, NY, will be remembered for his quiet nature, his inquisitive attitude and his love for music, physics and pizza.
“Tim was a man of many interests,” Lauren Elia, a fourth year biology major at Northeastern, said. “He was quiet by nature, but always deliberate in his actions. He was willing to converse with anyone who would engage him about something that he was interested in.”
An avid Phish enthusiast, Faulkner himself was a talented and aspiring musician. Many of his close friends shared his love for listening to and playing a miscellany of genres. While jamming with friends, Faulkner would discuss another one of his curious fascinations: theoretical physics.
“[Faulkner] was a huge fan of physicists like Stephen Hawking,” James McKeon, Faulkner’s freshman year roommate, said in an email interview. “[He] would discuss theoretical physics in a way that left the rest of us nodding our heads, pretending like we had any grasp of the complexity of the topic.”
McKeon, a political science and international affairs major, was in a band called Red Brick Alley with Will Clune, Jake Rosow and Faulkner. Faulkner was the band’s drummer. The group would often play in their dorms and talk about music or science or anything else that caught their interest.
“[Faulkner] really loved music more than anything else,” Clune, a senior, said in an email interview. “[He] played drums and guitar and about any instrument you put in front of him.”
Clune also recounted a journey that he and Faulkner went on to see their beloved band Phish.
“We drove from Boston to Burlington without tickets in order to go to the show,” Clune said. “It was a completely spontaneous thing and something that was very him.”
A man of refined taste, Faulkner valued New York’s bagels and pizza. Following last year’s Thanksgiving break, Faulkner and Elia drove from her home of Northern New Jersey up to Boston. Along the way, Faulkner made it a point to validate his taste in New Yorker food.
“If you know any jersey kids, we love our jersey food: most of us are bagel and pizza snobs,” Elia said. She reminisced about her food journey with Faulkner and his determination. Elia recalled Faulkner’s determination.”We must have gone to 3 different bagel places and ran into a whole host of roadblocks: closed stores, stopped making breakfast sandwiches, out of the kind of bagel we want… We drove around his town for 20 minutes before giving up and going to a pizza place that was located right about where we started our journey. And I must say, he had me convinced, that pizza place gets my NJ stamp of approval.”
Faulkner is survived by his parents Richard Faulkner and Catherine Walsh, his brother Richard and his sister Tracy Sederis and his grandparents Marilyn Faulkner and Patrick Walsh.
Photos courtesy James McKeon.
