Dr. ANGEL SAENZ-BADILLOS
July 6th 1940 - December 30th 2013
Dr. Saenz-Badillos was born in Logroño, Spain. He was the son of Angel Saenz-Badillos Alba y Francisca Perez Hernaez both from Logroño, Spain.
He leaves behind his wife of 41 years, Dr. Judit Targarona Borras, and his two children Angel Saenz-Badillos Jr married to Shashikala Prabhukumar of Seatle WA, and Dr. Judit Saenz-Badillos married to Dr. Douglas Laidlaw of Natick, MA. He has 3 adored grandchildren, Judit (9), Alex (7) and Divya (5).
Dr. Saenz-Badillos was a Hebrew scholar. He started his career at the University of Granada Spain, where he was Dean of his department. He later moved to the University of Madrid where he continued his career and became a leader on his field. He has numerous publications, his most important work being the History of the Hebrew Language which has been translated to many languages. After many years in Madrid, Dr. Saenz-Badillos was appointed Director of the Real Colegio Complutense (RCC), a cultural exchange program providing grants to graduate students from Spain the opportunity to study at Harvard University. It was for this role that Dr. Saenz-Badillos moved to Sommerville MA, where he spent the last 15 years of his life. As the director of the RCC, he took pride in providing young prominent researchers from Spain a life changing opportunity to come advance their careers at Harvard University.
One of his greatest prides, however, will always be his volunteer work in Nicaragua. In 2001, with his wife he started the non-profit organization Las Casas de la Esperanza, or The Houses of Hope. For the last 10 years this organization has been dedicated to improving the lives of the people in La Prusia, Nicaragua. The organization recruits and organizes a group of enthusiastic international volunteers that help with the construction of homes and community centers, run after-school support classes for the children, and support the families with children with disabilities in the community amongst many other projects. Their work has attracted the attention and assistance from international architects, doctors, nurses, and students who have all visited La Prusia to work on this project. As a strong believer in education, his organization currently provides 40 grants for the children of La Prusia, allowing them to continue their education past the 5th grade, for the first time in their community.
In Lieu of flowers we ask for a donation to this organization that he so deeply loved: casas-de-la-esperanza.org
http://casas-de-la-esperanza.org/donationsForm.html
There will be an intimate Celebration of Life gathering at his daughter’s house in Natick on Sunday January 5th at 3:00PM..