Alicia Nash

Personal life

Alicia Lardé Lopez-Harrison was born January 1, 1933 in El Salvador, the daughter of Alicia (née Lopez-Harrison) and Carlos Lardé, a doctor. The Lardé family also included two boys, Carlos and Rolando Lardé. Both of her parents came from socially prominent, well travelled families who spoke several languages. Her aunt was the poet Alice Lardé de Venturino; her paternal grandfather was Jorge Lardé, a chemical engineer.

When Lardé was a child, her father traveled to the United States a few times before deciding to move the family there permanently in 1944. After first settling in Biloxi, Mississippi, the family later moved to New York City. Lardé was accepted to the Marymount School with the help of a letter of recommendation from El Salvador's Ambassador to the United States. Following graduation from Marymount, Lardé was accepted into Massachusetts Institute of Technology, to study physics. She was one of very few women studying at MIT in the 1950s. It was there she met her future husband, John Forbes Nash, Jr..

Despite signs of Nash's mental illness which had emerged in the early 1950s, the couple married in 1957. She became pregnant with their son John Charles Martin Nash (who is also schizophrenic) in 1958, and shortly before the birth in 1959, John was committed into McLean Hospital in order to receive psychiatric treatment for his illness. After spending 50 days in hospital, he was released, but was recommitted three times over the next few years against his will by his sister. The couple divorced in 1963, but when John's mother died in 1968, he pressed her to allow him to return to live with her. In 1970, he moved in and Nash continued to help take care of her now ex-husband; the couple remarried in 2001.

Career

After graduation from M.I.T., Nash went to work for the Brookhaven Nuclear Development Corporation as a lab physicist. In the early 1960s, she worked for RCA as an aerospace engineer, but was laid off. She then worked for years at Con Edison as a system programmer and later for the New Jersey Transit system as a computer programmer and data analyst. She was a member of numerous women's engineering societies. When the film A Beautiful Mind was released, Nash was serving as president of M.I.T.'s Alumni Association Board.

Mental health advocacy

Nash became a spokesperson about schizophrenia and mental illness. In 2005 she was given the Luminary Award from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. She traveled around the country to discuss rights for those with mental illness, and in 2009 she met with New Jersey state lawmakers to discuss how to improve that state's mental health care system. In 2012, she was honored at the University of Texas at Austin’s John and Alicia Nash Conference for her support of those with mental illness, where she delivered the keynote address.

Death

Nash and her husband were killed in a car accident on the New Jersey Turnpike on May 23, 2015, near Monroe Township, New Jersey. They were on their way home after a visit to Norway, where her husband had been awarded the Abel Prize. The driver of the taxicab they were riding in from Newark Airport lost control of the cab and struck a guardrail. Both passengers were ejected from the vehicle upon impact.

Portrayal in media

Nash was portrayed by Jennifer Connelly in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind. For her performance, Connelly won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, mentioning Nash during her acceptance speech.