“[The year off] is definitely one of the mysteries of Anthony Fonseca,” Odell said. “A lot of us would ask him, and he wouldn’t say.”

Mao, who said Fonseca was deeply committed to the television station, described his personality as combining sarcasm with a more casual manner.

“He had a very prominent attitude. There’s just a way about him that was different,” Mao said. “He was laid back, [he] made fun of things. He was sarcastic and cynical but in a funny way.”

Mao, who said she would miss Fosneca’s “devil-may-care presence and good-natured dedication,” called him “a very talented filmmaker.”

“His work on the show last semester really conveyed his talent as a budding director and videographer,” she said.

Ivory Tower Executive Director Adam D. Fishbach ’06 wrote in an e-mail that Fonseca will be “greatly missed” at the television station.

“He possessed a great sense of humor, and he was a pleasure to know and work with,” Fishbach wrote.

The HRTV board is creating a DVD compilation of Fonseca’s work for the station as well as and student memories of him to give to his friends and family, Mao said.

“Although he always had an easygoing and nonchalant demeanor, we always knew we could count on him to come through on things,” Mao wrote in an e-mail.

She said that she was surprised that Fonseca missed HRTV’s weekly board meeting last Thursday. He wrote her a last-minute e-mail saying he couldn’t make it.

“It’s pretty abnormal for him not to come to meetings, that’s kind of odd,” Mao said.

Fonseca often deejayed campus parties and events, including the party following the Evening With Champions charity event.

He also recently completed the comp for WHRB’s black urban contemporary and studio engineering departments, although he eventually decided not to take on a show of his own.

“He was motivated and interested in what radio was,” said Scott L. Jones ’05, president of the WHRB, the campus radio station.

Fonseca spent intersession in Los Angeles, Calif., participating in the Harvardwood program, where he was able to observe filmmaking firsthand and meet people who worked in the movie business.

Mao said Fonseca recounted his Harvardwood experiences during the frequent shuttle rides they shared to and from the HRTV studio in Pforzheimer House.

“On our last trip, he told me all about all the professional connections he had made,” Mao wrote in an e-mail. “He had such ambition.”

—Staff writer May Habib can be reached at habib@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Katharine A. Kaplan can be reached at kkaplan@fas.harvard.edu.