In Memoriam: Maurice V. “Moe” and Dolores Cea
A Tale of Two Columbia Families
Train. Ferry. Train. For 43 years Maurice V. “Moe” Cea commuted from his home on Staten Island to Columbia University – more than an hour and a half. And, yet he rarely missed a school play, a dance recital, a track meet, or a family dinner. Dedicated and devoted. That was Moe. Dedicated to his work at the School of Engineering’s Plasma Physics Laboratory, to its students and its faculty. Devoted to his family: Dolores, his wife of 62 years; daughter Christine (Barnard ’83, Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences ‘85); son Steven (Columbia College ’85); and son Robert (Columbia College ’86, Columbia Business School ’97), who was named after Plasma Laboratory Founder Dean Robert “Bob” Gross; and five grandchildren.
To all who knew them, Moe and Dolores were good people and good to people. Moe, Manager of the Plasma Laboratory until his retirement in 1999, passed away in September 2022 and Dolores, facility manager for the Columbia Department of Mathematics from 1988–2005, in December 2022. In aggregate, the Cea family spent 75 years working and studying at Columbia, educations made possible by Moe’s years of service to and status as an Officer of the University. Moe worked on the first tokamak, which began as a series of experiments that continue to present day and are now achieving unprecedented breakthroughs.
Born in the Bronx to Italian immigrants, Moe grew up in Brooklyn. A “club king” who loved Latin dances, he met Dolores West Side Story-style at a school dance. A consummate sportsman, as a teenager he became hooked on his lifelong love of fishing on the piers of Coney Island and played roller hockey in the streets of Bensonhurst. Moe was the Physical Training champion at his Army Basic Training camp and played baseball while serving in post-war Korea. He ran the NYC Marathon six times and took Christine for Daddy-Daughter dates to see the Lions play (and mostly lose) at Bakers Field. The family spent their summer vacations camping – and fishing – all across America.
And how much did Moe love to laugh. He never met a pun he didn’t like and had a revolving repertoire of what are now called “Dad jokes” and guffaw-inducing stories. When thinking about Moe, you can’t help but hear his laugh. Moe believed in “better” – the better nature of people and how to make his and other lives better through learning, nutrition, respect for others, personal growth, and optimism. As a student once wrote to him: “Moe, you could hold a conversation on just about anything.”
Upon his retirement, tributes poured in:
Robin Motz, who along with Bob Gross, Ben Eastlund, Ben Miller and Moe, worked together in the basement of the Mudd building, recalled that “the graduate experimental students did a lot of running around, while you tried to ‘keep the faith,’ and supervise the building of everything with calm reassurance.”
Raed Kombargi (Ph.D. Applied Physics, MA Philosophy, MS all from Columbia) wrote “you have taught me, and many others before me, technical skills, but more important than that, you have showed us through your actions how to be caring human beings. And at the end, that is all that matters. If I had to summarize your qualities, I would say that having known you made me a better person.”
Phil Efthimion (B.S., Columbia University; M.S., Columbia University; Ph.D., Columbia University) wrote how “it is hard to imagine the Plasma Physics Lab without you. So many of us alumni owe you a great amount of gratitude for your help when we were struggling to complete our experimental work. When we needed a hand or technical advice you were there to help. Not only because it was your job, but it was clear that you cared for the students. The plaque listing the Laboratory’s graduates is not just an indication of the Department’s growth and success, but it also a testament to your support and dedication.”
Thomas C. Marshall, the late Professor Emeritus of Applied Physics, thanked Moe for his “dedication to making the Plasma Laboratory not only a first-class place to do research, but also in making it a pleasant place to work as well, with a spirit of cooperation that all our students remember fondly. This is not just a happy coincidence; it is also rather uncommon, it just didn’t happen by accident, and you deserve credit for helping to make it happen.”
That was, and will always be, Moe: An uncommon common man who made things happen. Who cared. Who loved “the lab” and his family beyond measure. And, who made us all laugh – and better people.
