Newsweek 3/15/18: Stephen Hawking’s Greatest Lesson – A Degenerative Disease Won’t Stop Us Achieving Greatness by Wayland resident and Chair of the ALS Association Board of Trustees Stephen Winthrop. I am one of at least 20,000 Americans currently living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), just a part of the broader worldwide community mourning the passing of Stephen Hawking. His life was exceptional in many ways, just one of which was how full a life he lived for more than fifty years after his diagnosis of ALS. He has inspired me to focus on what I can do, rather than what my body can no longer do.