Nancy Linda Weiss Stegman, 69, of Chapel Hill, N.C., passed away on December 19, 2010 at peace and surrounded by her loving family and friends. She was born June 6, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Edward Leo Weiss and Ruth Satler Weiss. Nancy attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn, where she met her future husband, Michael Allen Stegman. She attended Cornell University, majoring in English and earning a Bachelor of Science in human ecology in 1962. After a long-distance courtship between Cornell University and Brooklyn College, she and Michael embarked on a marriage of 48 years.
Nancy began her career as an English teacher at Darby Township Junior High while helping to pay for Michael’s graduate study at nearby University of Pennsylvania. Nancy and Michael moved to Chapel Hill in 1965 after Michael accepted a position on the faculty of the University of North Carolina. Shortly after arriving in Chapel Hill with a newborn daughter, Nancy enrolled as a part-time student in the graduate program in computer science at UNC, from which she earned a Master of Science in computer science in 1976. She was among the first women to hold such a degree at that time. She then began a more than two-decade career in computer technology as a contractor to and career employee of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, N.C., where, at her retirement in 2008, she held the position of chief information officer and chief of the computer technology branch.
Nancy is survived by her husband, Michael Stegman, of Chapel Hill; her two daughters, Laurie Stegman of Washington, D.C., and Karen Stegman of Chapel Hill, and Karen’s partner, Alyson Grine, of Chapel Hill; her grandchildren, Hazel Stegman Grine and Wyatt Stegman Grine of Chapel Hill; and her younger brother, Steven Weiss, of Stamford, Conn.
In lieu of flowers, donations in Nancy’s memory may be made to The Nancy W. Stegman Fund for New Ideas in Cancer Research, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, Campus Box 7295, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7295.