Joseph Zelvin (B. Arch., 1965) passed away at the age of 82 on July 9, 2021, in White Plains, NY, with his wife, Mimi Koren, by his side. For two decades Joe ran the New York City architectural model shop that bore his name, where he worked with Edward Larrabee Barnes and created, among other things, the model of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water that is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
He then developed a specialty of creating prototypes and computer graphics for ophthalmological instruments used in the advanced diagnosis of eye disorders; he was largely self-taught in this endeavor. He worked as a consultant for such companies as Leica/Reichert and Joslin Diabetes Center, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School.
He was awarded the Honorary Gano Dunn Award by the Cooper Alumni Association in 2001 and held five patents from the U.S. Patent Office.