Daniel Mordecai Gilden Obituary

Daniel Gilden, age 57, died at home on May 6, 2017 of brain cancer. Daniel, a healthcare analyst and policy consultant, started his company, JEN Associates, in 1983 after completing a master’s degree at MIT in experimental physics. He was a pioneer in the use of large-scale healthcare data to shape policy and became a nationally recognized expert in the field.

Colleagues, friends, and family uniformly acknowledged Daniel’s brilliance, kindness, and humility as well as his generosity, integrity, and courage. They will miss his sense of humor and enthusiasm for life. Daniel’s analytic capacities were matched by his unusually eloquent verbal skills. His adeptness at solving some of the toughest problems in healthcare economics was legendary. Sometimes his passion and excitement for talking about data moved beyond a listener’s comprehension. Sometimes it was simply a wonder. In a letter to Daniel before his death, one colleague wrote of her experience of him, “I was asking questions and just nodding in astonishment… about how you could put together ideas in ways that I could not imagine or articulate.”

Daniel had a prescience few possess and an uncommon sense of duty. Fundamentally opposed to using insurance as a method for paying for healthcare, he was an early advocate for the expansion of Medicare to provide universal care for all. As a healthcare data analyst working with large scale claims data, he challenged notions about physician over treatment in certain regions of the country demonstrating instead that poverty played a significant role in the prevalence and costs of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

Daniel Mordecai Gilden was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut on September 27, 1959, to writers Bert and Katya Gilden, known best for their novels “Hurry Sundown” and “Between the Hills and the Sea”. The youngest of three sons, Daniel, born when his mother was 46, was a surprise. Learning of their pregnancy, the couple happily announced, “We’ll raise our own grandson!” Daniel was shaped, in part, by the huge success of “Hurry Sundown,” which created a change in the family’s economic and social status.

Daniel loved his home in Fairfield and the intellectual stimulation of life there. He often recalled the many artists and political activists who visited the house on Algonquin Road. Both parents dreamed he’d become a writer. Reflecting on his choice to use his analytic gifts differently, Daniel said, “I came close to another one of my mother’s dreams for me--using my work life to solve national policy problems.”

Tragedy struck when Daniel was 11 and his father Bert died suddenly of a heart attack. Daniel’s older brothers had already left the household for college. The big house was sold, and Daniel and his mother moved from Fairfield to Hamden, Connecticut where Katya taught creative writing at nearby Wesleyan University.

Daniel received the English Prize at Hamden High School and later attended Hampshire College in Amherst, MA where he received at BS in Physics. Daniel developed a love of hiking, rock climbing and cross -country skiing while in college. An avid cyclist, Daniel ran Hampshire’s bicycle repair shop. After spending a year teaching physics at Hampshire College, Daniel moved to Cambridge, MA. During the subsequent 20 years in Cambridge, Daniel started his company. He also started a family adopting a son from Russia, Joseph, and became a foster parent to an adolescent boy, Sameer Tiwari, who is now a businessman in Shanghai. Daniel’s commitment to these young men was unfaltering.

In 2006, Daniel met Elizabeth Anderson. They married in 2009. Daniel was a devoted stepparent to Elizabeth’s son, Isaac Harmon, as well as a true partner to Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Daniel’s love was mighty; they seemed to fit each other just right. Such a precious gift is hard to find and unbearable to lose.

In addition to Elizabeth, son Joseph, foster son Sameer, stepson Isaac, brothers David and Jairus, and niece Jasmine survive Daniel. His nephew Alex Robinson-Gilden died in February 2017 of the same type of brain tumor.

A memorial was held on June 24, 2017 at MIT Chapel to honor Daniel’s life and work. Colleagues at the American Academy of Home Care Medicine have created an award in Daniel’s name, “The Dan Gilden Creative Investigator Award," to be funded annually. Contributions can be made at the AAHCM site: https://aahcm.site-ym.com

Daniel’s ashes are buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery on 10888 Acacia Path