Baton Rouge — While doing the usual Google search for his name, the Founder discovered three interesting articles that included his name.
The first article is a People at LSU article from 15 September 2000 about Leif's stay in Japan while working at KamLAND:
Robert Svoboda, Physics and Astronomy, has participated in a collaborative research project with the University of Japan and Tohoko [sic] University since 1993 detecting neutrino particles, the smallest particles known to science. LSU students Roger Wendell, K.B. Lee, Leif Remo and Steven Dazeley spent most of the summer working on the project in Japan with other students from around the country.
Another article on Leif's work in Japan is at SpaceHike.com. Here is an excerpt:
Svoboda has made numerous trips to Japan since construction began on the [KamLAND] detector in 1998. Postdoctoral students Steven Dazeley and Shuichiro Hatakeyama, graduate students Mitsuko Murakami and Ana Rojas and undergraduates Roger Wendell, Aaron McMorris and Leif Remo have also traveled to Japan and spent time working on the project. Wendell installed about one-third of the 1,879 photomultipliers inside the steel sphere.
The third article has caused some controversy. It was based on telephone interviews with a reporter sometime in 2001 or early 2002, said Founder Spokesman George Spielfisch. It appears on the Louisiana Info website:
...there are a few students who want to stay where they were born and raised after graduation, and who are willing to work hard to kick-start their career in Louisiana.
One such graduate is Leif Remo, currently a contingent worker in the computer science graduate program at LSU.
"The only advantage I see (for a tech student to stay in Louisiana) is if they were raised here, live here and are comfortable staying," he said.
Remo, 25, graduated with a major in physics and a minor in computer science at LSU. He is looking for a career in Baton Rouge in software development, but has found a shortage of opportunities in the technology field.
"At this point I hope to stay in the state," said Remo. "but it's amazing how little there is in the state."
"The Founder has most certainly been misrepresented and misquoted," said Spielfisch. "The article represents the Founder as being born in Louisiana and we are all quite aware of his birth in Montréal. Also, at no point in his life was he in the computer science graduate program at LSU."
There is also significant doubt that the article correctly quotes the Founder. "We are quite certain that the quotes attributed to Leif are not his own words," said Spielfisch. "The author most likely paraphrased the Founder and put quotes around it."
Addendum 2005-05-31
The third article seems to have been written in 2001 for the
Greater Baton Rouge Business Report. It's claimed to be posted there on
October 23 of that year.