Paul Zalesky sent the news of John’s death and Tess Longhi sent the obituary John wrote for himself:
John Longhi was born in White Plains, New York, raised in Larchmont, New York, and lived most of his adult life in Hamden, Connecticut. Following his graduation from Notre Dame with a BS in geology, John entered the Peace Corps and served in Kenya for more than 2 years where he met and married Tess, a nurse volunteer, who had a smile that could light up a room. While in Kenya, John designed and supervised construction of rural water supplies. Upon returning to the USA, John and Tess moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts where Tess worked as a visiting nurse and gave birth to a baby girl, Sarah. Meanwhile, John earned a PhD in geology at Harvard. Post-doctoral fellowships at MIT and the University of Oregon followed next. Subsequently, John had a successful career as a research scientist especially at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, where he worked on increasing our understanding of the origin of the chemical variation in lavas on Earth, the Moon, and the meteorite parent bodies.
John’s career and life were shortened by advancing Parkinson disease. He will be remembered for his calm disposition and timely sense of humor.