Barbara Jane Pease

Barbara Jane Pease, 79, died June 4, 2026 in Ithaca, NY after a long illness. Born 1946 in Massachusetts to William and Marjorie Pease, she is survived by her brother William Pease (Marilyn), niece Kim Pease, and her large family-of-choice, including former partner Gail Carson, step-daughter Victoria Grice (Lynne), step-nephew Ram Saran Thapa (Niruja) and beloved step-cousin Michael J. Coyle.

She is also survived by many friends in her cohousing community, EcoVillage at Ithaca (which her late sister-in-law, Pamela Carson, helped found in the 1990s), and also in her faith congregation at the First Baptist Church of Ithaca.

In her 20s, Barbara became a Fellow at Harvard University in Biology and worked on advanced research on children's diseases at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, making notable breakthroughs. Later she attended MIT, where her father was a renowned computer professor. She switched her career to computer engineering, a field she thrived in. Her longtime career, in person in Boston until 2001 and then remotely from Ithaca, was at MITRE Corp. of Bedford, MA, doing genius-level computer research as a senior engineer.

In retirement at EcoVillage, she pursued art and poetry with passion and participated in cohousing life. She had been writing poetry throughout her life and was in the EVI poetry group. She was an artist and sculptor of note, working in black charcoal on paper and on masks.

Barbara traveled widely all her life, including in Russia (she spoke Russian), Germany, France and Nepal. She stood with her then partner, Gail Carson, at the bottom of Mt. Everest in 2004 and said, "I lift mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help."

Towards the end of her life, as her health declined, Barbara wrote a spiritual memoir about her faith journey.

She was buried in the EcoVillage section of Greensprings Natural Cemetery Preserve south of Ithaca. Donations may be made in her memory to the First Baptist Church of Ithaca, NY.