Christopher “Kiffy” Purvis was born and grew up primarily in New York. He was married to his childhood sweetheart and had two young children whom he loved very much.
He also spent a considerable amount of time in New Mexico because of a close relationship with an uncle and aunt who lived there. Christopher was fascinated by the Navajo culture and the stories of the Hopi and Anasazi cultures.
Living for a time in Guatemala, Christopher learned Spanish and worked with coffee plantation workers. Later he also lived in Kenya, working with school children and farmers and learning Swahili. For most of his 20s he taught high school chemistry, biology and physics, as well as coached basketball for five years at schools in Pennsylvania and California. Christopher relished the opportunity to teach others and he loved and empathized with his students. He eventually decided to settle down and build a family, so he moved to San Francisco and took a job at Google, working most recently in their education division.
Christopher was endlessly curious and always exploring the world. He loved birds, science, learning in all its forms, and obsessing over sports. He made and cherished distinct friendships in each stage of his life and maintained them as living parts of his adult life. Particularly attuned to the levels of unfairness and unhappiness in the world, he spent a considerable amount of his life trying to help level some of those inequities and make others aware of them. He will be missed by his family, friends and colleagues, who would like his memory to serve as a gift for others.
