As the class of 2015 looks ahead beyond graduation, we also look back and commemorate those who died before Commencement. Friends and peers of Mark St. Louis ’15, who died July 18, 2014, honor the lasting impact he had during his time at Brown.
You don’t have short conversations with Mark St. Louis.
I fondly remember one summer listening to Mark talk over and over again about a chicken dish he was planning to make using the sous-vide technique. Mark described it as typical southern style cooking in concept, but efficient, easy and effective in practice. “Everyone knows slow cooking is the best way to perfectly prepare a piece of meat,” he would say, “but it often lacks a certain style and finesse.”
“Inspired by French and American engineers and adapted in Virginia, sous-vide slow cooking ensures the juiciest possible chicken, every time,” he continued.
Mark explained the chicken, temperature gradients and ideal thermo-conductive mediums. While I appreciated his theoretical understanding of this niche area of cooking, I never thought that he would actually sous-vide anything, much less a chicken. But one day, Mark grabbed a giant Ziploc bag of chicken and sous-vide it in a red and white cooler for an entire day, a process that frankly grossed me out a little.
But when he decided it was ready around midnight that night, I had to try it. I was shocked to discover that it was perhaps the juiciest chicken I have ever eaten. After all the buildup, there really wasn’t another option but for that chicken to have come out perfectly. I came to realize that Mark’s sous-vide chicken was the result of a love and willpower that drove interest into passion. Mark dedicated himself completely to all pursuits, academic and athletic, and there was an intensity to his work ethic that both excited and intimidated. But good or bad, Mark was someone you wanted by your side. A savage competitor and fierce friend, Mark gave himself completely to what he believed, even a task as small and tedious as slow cooking a piece of chicken to perfection.
-Ryan Brown
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For better or for worse, Mark always left an impression. Sometimes it was 9 a.m. in the Ratty, and I would be barely awake enough to comprehend the idea of cereal, while Mark would be talking to (or at) me about existentialism. Other times it would be in class, where he was either bored and researching science articles, or so heatedly involved in the discussion that you would wonder if he ever considered being a politician. He was like light reflected on moving water — brilliant, dynamic and so rapidly moving from one thought to the next that you could barely keep up.
As much as his intensity could be amusing, it was nevertheless admirable and astonishing to witness. He could talk about any topic with passion and zest, leaving you with the feeling that the gears of his mind were always in motion. Mark never settled, and he constantly aspired to something great. A man of extremes, he didn’t want to simply pursue neuroscience — he wanted to change the field forever, and he believed that he was capable of achieving such feats.
I think that quality is what I envied most about Mark, despite all of his other talents and accomplishments. He knew that he wasn’t perfect, yet he had a stubborn, undaunted confidence in his intelligence and tireless work ethic (he had been known to outcompete me in caffeine consumption, which is no minor achievement). More importantly, he was generous and humble enough to be able to place that confidence in those he knew. Mark’s conviction and support got me through low points during my time at Brown, and I have no doubt that his memory will continue to encourage and motivate me for the rest of my life.
-Emily Toomey
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Mark and I lived together two summers ago. I remember he would often take off when we were hanging out at 10 or 11 at night, departing for lab to check on his experiments. He was so excited about and driven by his research that he actually looked forward to midnight trips to the lab, something that was unimaginable to me.
I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, though; I had seen him bring the same boundless energy to the ultimate Frisbee team for three years. At tournaments, he cheered on his teammates with such volume and force that it was, honestly, a little scary, though always welcome and invigorating. (Mark’s fervor in cheering earned him the nickname “Cage” as a reference to the intensity that Nicolas Cage displays in all his films. Of course, Mark embraced the nickname wholeheartedly.)
Mark incredibly brought this same passion to his personal life as he did to his work and to his team. One evening during the summer we lived together, it suddenly started pouring while he was biking home from lab. He walked up to the kitchen where, warm and dry, I was preparing dinner. Standing in the doorway with a mischievous grin on his face, dripping a puddle on the floor, he said, “Do you want a hug?” After chasing me around the table for 10 full minutes, he eventually caught me, and I ended up drenched as well.
I saw that same fire in his eyes whenever I spoke with Mark. Whether it was a debate about which professional tennis players would excel at ultimate or just him vehemently expounding the virtues of prosecco and powdered MSG, he was fully committed to the conversation. This is the aspect of Mark’s life that will always stay with and inspire me: the true energy and investment he brought to anything and everything I ever saw him do.
-Ezra Lichtman
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Mark St. Louis and I got to know each other at the United World College of the Adriatic, where we spent the last two years of high school together. Upon our first encounter at the beginning of our first year, I was not his biggest fan. He was a loud, cocky, intense know-it-all — not to mention the good-looking, “all-American” athlete who everyone swooned over. He always had a story to tell for any situation — even if it was the same story again, and again … and again. Yet he was always willing to share his knowledge with others, and to try to engage you with your own interests. I was loath to admit it at first, but we had quite a lot in common that way. I just needed to see through the performance he put on. Once I did, I found Mark to be one of the most sincere people I’ve ever known.
At UWC, co-years become like siblings, and in many ways, Mark was my brother. Because we were both from the South, Mark and I bonded over talking too fast and trying to explain typical Southern cuisine like grits and chicken biscuits to the other students. We teased each other, we laughed, we argued and we pushed each other’s buttons — something I’m sure he took great pleasure in. Mark reveled in the fact that I was always calling him out on his foolishness; I think our friendship grew because of it.
That relationship continued here at Brown. Every once in a while, the UWC Adriatic folks would get together somewhere to eat, laugh and relive fond memories. Even when bogged down with work, Mark would always stop by to join in. Because he was always busy working hard in one science building or another, I rarely saw Mark unless we spontaneously bumped into one another in the dining halls. Sometimes I’d find him sitting with his Frisbee bros playing apple fork, a game where the goal is to literally catch an apple on a fork as it’s being tossed around a circle. But whenever I saw him studiously working alone at a table, I’d join him and we’d catch up or just sit in companionable silence. In the moments that I spent with Mark, we were always real with each other. UWC brought us together, but it wasn't what kept us together — love (and a lot of teasing) did that. This all made it that much harder to speak at his memorial service in the fall and to think upon the fact that he will not graduating with us this year.
Today, I watched a YouTube video of the class of 2015 walking through the Van Wickle Gates. Today, I saw all of our young, hopeful faces beaming back at me from 2011 as we walked through those gates and into the next four years of our lives at this institution. Today, I heard the bell tolling over and over again, telling us to keep marching on. Today, exactly five minutes and 57 seconds into that video, I saw the face of my friend Mark St. Louis coming toward me on the computer screen.
Mark passed away on July 18, 2014, but today, for 10 whole seconds, I was able to see my friend again. This time, I wasn’t imagining him coming through the Sciences Library’s revolving doors. This time, he wasn't some guy running down Brook Street. This time, he was actually there. I could pause the video and prove to myself that Mark was still here with me, just how I remembered him. Like the rest of us in the class of 2015, in this video Mark can be seen smiling, looking around and chatting away. He can be seen marching on to his future at this institution, a future that unfortunately was not able to reach its full potential. So, for a while, I stopped marching. But somehow, that bell keeps tolling. Somehow, I started marching again. And somehow, Mark won't be marching with us when we go back through those gates.
-Maris Jones
