This is indeed very sad news.
Joyce came to work at ISI in the late 1970s as my admin support when I was
running a research group there. She was promoted to a similar job with the
ISI’s Deputy Director and then later joined Postel’s group to assist with the
IANA function. She was smart, energetic, always cheerful and excited to be
interacting with people. When the IETF was formed in the latter 1980s, it was
natural for her to be involved, first from her role as the part of the IANA
team and then more broadly on behalf of the users. Although Jon Postel is
often characterized as handling the IANA function alone and as a side task in
addition to his regular job, Joyce was an integral part of the team.
When ICANN was formed in late 1998, Joyce facilitated the transfer of the IANA
function from ISI to ICANN and worked briefly for ICANN. That was a
particularly tough period because Jon died a few days prior to the official
start of ICANN. One of the conference rooms at ICANN’s headquarters in Los
Angeles bears her name
Joyce will be missed by many, many people. She left good feelings with all who
knew her, and we all benefitted from her engagement.
Steve