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Lindsay's Torah portion is
from Numbers 3. Her verses
include a description of how
God, in killing the firstborn of
Egypt, spared the firstborn of
Israel and claimed them for
His own.
Lindsay is the firstborn in
her family.
"Here she will be at her bat
mitzvah having lived," Dr. Eu-
lenberg says. "She, too, was
spared the death from which
all other children (with Mar-
shall-Smith syndrome) have
died. And now she will per-
form the service, the priestly
function of praising God and
reading from the Torah."
abled. His best friend, who was
blind, had used a Braille
prayer book at his bar mitzvah
ceremony. The two young men
became "determined to work
for the elimination of handi-
caps," Dr. Eulenberg said.
In 1972, Dr. Eulenberg
came to MSU to teach the
African language Hausa. But
he also wanted to put his com-
puter and technical skills to
use. One day, he "walked over
to the computer science lab to
find out what was going on."
Soon after he started assisting
the professor there, then "I de-
cided to change the purpose of
the lab" to helping the dis-
abled.
That same year, Dr. Eulen-
berg began working with a
voice synthesizer which had
been donated to MSU. "I real-
ized," he said, "that the com-
puter could be a great tool."
His father's death was still
fresh in his mind. Had the se-
nior Mr. Eulenberg been alive,
"I'm sure he could have spoken
(with the aid of a system)."
After the head of the com-
puter science lab left, Dr. Eu-
lenberg took over. He
continues to serve as director
of the lab and also teaches in
the MSU audiology and
speech, Asian and African lan-
guages , linguistics and
telecommunications depart-
ments.
Among Dr. Eulenberg's ear-
ly projects at the lab: creating
the first singing computer for
Stevie Wonder and designing
the first federal computer net-
work of talking terminals, ,
used by blind civil service em-
ployees.
His work quickly expanded
to public schools, includfitg
those in Wayne and Oakland
counties, where Dr. Eulenberg
and his colleague, Steven
Blosser, an engineer, have de-,
signed numerous systems to
help the disabled communi-
cate.
Today, about 12 studentZ
work, together with Dr. Eu-
lenberg and Mr. Blosser, at the
artificial language lab.
In the early 1980s, Dr. Eu-
lenberg was doing work at tile
Rackham School for the hank-
icapped in Ypsilanti. His
clients included a boy named
David who had been injured,
in a car accident and was viz.=
Photo by Scott Weiner
I
t was African languages,
not computers, that
brought Dr. Eulenberg to
MSU.
A Chicago native, he at-
tended the Massachusetts In-
stitute of Technology, then
Harvard and the University of
California-San Diego, from
which he holds a Ph.D. in com-
puter science and linguistics.
His first interest was math,
but he took up languages, too,
when author, linguist and MIT
professor Noam Chomsky told
him, "John, you should be a
linguist."
Meanwhile, Dr. Eulenberg
watched as his father, a vi-
brant public speaker who
loved to converse, contracted
Lou Gehrig's disease. It soon
became impossible for him to
communicate. He died in 1968.
It was not Dr. Eulenberg's
first experience with the dis-
Eugene Chernyakhovsky and his mother, Larisa.
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FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 1992