Obituary

Oscar Gustavo Pagani, died on September 16, 2026, in Davis, California, surrounded by those who loved him. He succumbed to complications of Acute Myeloid Leukemia consequent to non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, which he fought for a decade. He was 64 years old.

Born on February 4, 1962 in Uruguay, Oscar grew up in a close-knit family shaped by Italian and European roots, deep affection, and a love of sport. He spent his early childhood in Montevideo, where neighborhood life meant friends gathering outside, soccer near the beach, and long afternoons spent playing. Basketball soon became the defining sport of his youth, a passion that would remain with him for the rest of his life.

As a teenager, Oscar moved with his family to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where his talent on the basketball court quickly distinguished him. He trained within Argentina’s highly competitive club system and became one of the strongest players in his age group.

At 17, while still living in Argentina, Oscar was invited to try out for Uruguay’s national youth basketball team. From a field of roughly 40 players, he earned a place among the final 12 and ultimately represented Uruguay at two youth levels, competing internationally against teams from across South America. The following year, at 18, he joined a professional team in Argentina, marking another milestone in a basketball career that had already taken him from neighborhood courts to international competition.

At 19, Oscar returned to Uruguay and played professionally in the country’s first division. His father, Juan, was his most devoted fan, keeping handwritten records of Oscar’s statistics from the stands. Those years represented more than athletic achievement for Oscar. They were intertwined with family, friendship and the country he always carried with him.

At age 20, Oscar and his parents immigrated to the United States, arriving in Marin County, California at the beginning of 1983. He brought few belongings, but among them was a suitcase filled with the records and mementos of his basketball career.

In Marin, basketball once again helped Oscar find his footing. He attended College of Marin, learned to navigate life in a new language and country, and earned a starting position on its basketball team. He later attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, earning a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. Still looking for a path that would combine his analytical gifts with practical work, he returned to the Bay Area and enrolled part time at San Francisco State University, where he earned a second bachelor’s degree, this time in electrical engineering.

Oscar was brilliant, endlessly curious and drawn to solving difficult problems. He began his engineering career working on industrial control systems and earned his professional engineering license. His career later evolved alongside the technology industry itself, taking him from electrical engineering into software development.

Over the decades, Oscar worked at an extraordinary collection of Bay Area institutions and technology companies, including NASA Ames Research Center, Lucasfilm, Yahoo!, Wells Fargo, Pixar Animation Studios, Trulia and Zillow. At Pixar, he built internal technology used across the studio’s film productions. Later, at Trulia and Zillow, he worked as a senior software engineer building products and tools used at significant scale. His colleagues remembered him as thoughtful, detail-oriented and deeply interested in understanding a problem before solving it. Even while battling cancer, he continued to hone his technical skills through webinars and coding challenges on his laptop.

For all of his professional accomplishments, Oscar’s greatest pride was his daughter, Alessandra.

Fatherhood transformed the center of Oscar’s life. He delighted in being present, from the ordinary routines of childhood, to ballet classes and performances, piano recitals, soccer games, school events, travel to Uruguay and beyond, and the milestones of her young adulthood. When Alessandra was young, weekends were filled with parks, family visits and outings around Marin. As she grew older, their relationship grew with her. They traveled together, shared meals and movies, and developed the kind of closeness built through years of simply showing up for one another.

Oscar was deeply devoted to his family, including his parents, two sisters, niece, and extended family that had grown around them in California and beyond, carrying forward the strong family bonds of his upbringing in Uruguay. He valued continuity, loyalty and time spent together, particularly over a good and abundant meal. His love and devotion extended to furry family members, including his family’s first dog in the US, Kimba, his daughter’s beloved Pug, Mu Shu, and many other canine nieces and nephews over the years. His gentleness with animals was an expression of the gentle soul that he was.

Basketball, meanwhile, never really left him. He remained a devoted Golden State Warriors fan, at one point attending 40 of the team’s 41 home games in a season. He continued playing competitively well into adulthood and traveled internationally for Maxibasketball tournaments, representing his homeland, Uruguay. Even as his body changed, and later as cancer made competition more difficult, he continued to play because the game still gave him joy.

Oscar is survived by his beloved daughter, Alessandra Pagani; his sisters, Rossana Pagani and Celina Pagani; his longtime partner, Carol Dean, her children, Jamie Dean and Justin Dean, and their families; his niece, Celina Yosri and her husband Nima; his grand-nephew, Reza Yosri; his brother-in-law, Robert Tousignant; his former wife, co-parent, and friend Gigi Pagani; and a large circle of family and friends in California, Uruguay and beyond. He was predeceased by his parents, Celina and Juan Pagani.

Oscar’s life crossed countries, languages, careers and generations, but the things he valued most remained remarkably constant: family, curiosity, friendship, basketball and the pleasure of doing something well. He will be remembered for his intelligence and generosity, his quiet persistence, his love of the game, his gentle temperament, and above all, the devotion he showed to the people he loved.

In lieu of flowers, the family invites donations to the Warrior’s Golden State Community Foundation, UCSF Dr. Aaron Logan Research Fund, Pug Rescue of Northern California, and Unión de Veteranos de Basquetbol de Uruguay.  See the Donations page for more information and direct links to give.