Matthew Herper, published an article reflecting on several student deaths, including Gale's suicide. People magazine featured Gale's story in a 2001 series of articles on suicides at MIT, describing him as a music major "so prodigiously bright that he counted few of his much older peers as intellectual equals". His mother and sister were interviewed and photographed for the article. Though it touched on Gale's Scientology upbringing, it mostly focused on the high suicide rate at MIT and student access to health care on campus. In August 2001, the National Public Radio program All Things Considered noted that, in the wake of Gale's death, MIT had investigated how to deal with issues of student suicides. The student Eric Plosky commented to NPR: "In many ways, suicide has been looked on as something that's just part and parcel of life at the Institute. That ingrained thinking historically, I think, has prevented administrators from looking at suicide as a problem to which there might be some reasonable response." The investigative report released by MIT identified deficiencies within its mental health program. Between 1995 and 2015, the rate of suicides among MIT undergraduate students was 50% higher than the national average for college students, and slightly higher than comparable figures at nearby Harvard University. In a 2015 interview, MIT Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart acknowledged that the numbers were of concern, but had improved since the early 2000s. See also List of suicides References 1978 births 1998 suicides American SubGenii American former Scientologists Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni People from Los Angeles People from New Hampshire College students who committed suicide Suicides by jumping in the United States Suicides in Massachusetts