Jameson Quinn
Jan. 19, 1974-March 23, 2025
Guatemala City, Guatemala
Submitted by Dan Quinn

Jameson Quinn died March 23, 2025, after falling into a canyon in Guatemala City while attempting to rescue a small dog. Jameson (James Arnold Quinn) was born January 19, 1974. He graduated from Oberlin College, Ohio 1998 and earned a PhD in Statistics at Harvard in 2020. He supported his family by working as a teacher, a programmer and as a statistician. Jameson’s ambition and intellectual passion were dedicated to serving the world. He worked tirelessly as a volunteer for causes he believed in, guided by his strong moral compass, his deep and broad intellect, and his loving and generous heart.

A primary interest was in improving democratic processes by devising, evaluating, and advocating for alternative voting systems. In fact, Jameson’s motivation in pursuing his PhD was to enhance his ability to speak to how votes can be made and counted to ensure that all voters have an equal voice in an election outcome. In addition to thinking and writing about political voting systems, he helped devise a new voting method for the fan-voted Hugo awards for science fiction writers after it was seen that the prior system was vulnerable to distortion of its results by a relatively small number of voters working in concert. He served on the governing boards of The Center for Election Science and then the Equal Vote Coalition. In both organizations he was recognized as an intellectual leader in voting theory, a persuasive and rational voice, fun to work with, always ready to debate an issue and to hear and build upon the ideas of others as well as his own.

Jameson met his wife Rogelia Cruz Estrada in 2001 while volunteering for a year for “Schools for Chiapas” in Oventik, Mexico. They married the following year and, returning to her homeland Guatemala, took on the project of starting a middle school in La Trinidad, a community of returned refugees, acting as its initial teachers while working to have it certified as a state supported public school. Their child, Ixchel, was born in 2004.

Jameson grew up in Portola Valley, and lived in Seattle, WA; Oventik and San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico; La Trinidad and Guatemala City, Guatemala; and Cambridge, MA. He is survived and deeply missed by Rogelia and by Ixchel, now a student at Smith College, MA; by his parents Dan and Helen Quinn of Portola Valley, and by his sister Bethica Quinn and her daughters Clio and Lucinda of San Francisco.

Tags: teacher/educator, public service