Our colleague and friend, the vice president of IARTEM and chief editor of the IARTEM eJournal, Mike Horsley, passed away last Friday, 2. September. Mike spent his life to the benefit of others, fellow researchers, friends, family and underprivileged pupils in Australia and on the Pacific Islands. When he was struck by cancer, he fought back going through a long sequence of operations and chemotherapy treatments. Even then he found time and energy to work for IARTEM and the dissemination of educational media research.
Mike was a keen researcher in the fields of eyetracking and the impact of homework beside his work as an educational media researcher. Since 2001 Mike was a committed member of IARTEM serving as president and vice president for several periods. His ideas, network and energy were crucial to develop IARTEM from a European to a truly international organization. Mike was the editor in chief of the IARTEM eJournal, and took pride in opening the journal for contributions in Portuguese and Spanish. Until recently Mike worked on a publication commemorating IARTEM’s 25th anniversary. He did not live to see it finished but his work has put a definitive mark on IARTEM and will remain of great importance.
We in the IARTEM community mourn facing the loss of our great and generous Australian friend. Our thoughts are with his familiy, Siobhan and Sadie that we were happy to know and that he loved so much.