Martin R. Stoller, a popular Kellogg professor who founded a multimillion-dollar dating program, died of cancer Saturday at University of Chicago Hospital. He was 49.

“His gift was to evoke strong emotions,” said his wife Melissa, a professor at the University of Chicago. “Everyone either loved him or hated him.”

Stoller started teaching in 1988 while writing his dissertation at Northwestern’s School of Communication. Kellogg School of Management students voted him Professor of the Year in 1991 and consistently gave him the highest evaluations on Course and Teacher Evaluation Council surveys, his wife said.

“He really believed what he had to say,” said Jeff Gilbert, Kellogg ’92, a student of Stoller’s.

His students said he brought classroom material to life.

“He was, for sure, the most real world professor I had,” said April Callahan, Kellogg ’91. “He was not like a typical professor.”

Lindsay Landsberg, Kellogg ’90, said Stoller cared about his students so much that he even called her at home when he thought she hadn’t done her best work.

“He was so caring and committed,” Landsberg said. “He made you feel like you mattered.”

Instead of focusing on research, Stoller felt teaching should be his primary focus. He never published an article. He was known as a dynamic professor, who incorporated his experience in the business world into his teaching.

“Rather than publish, publish, publish, he just wanted to teach,” Callahan said.

Stoller started many business ventures. His most successful collaboration was with two Kellogg students to found Plextel Communications, a computer software company that used artificial intelligence for a dating service. When the program was sold in January 1997 to CUC International Inc. it was making $8 million a month. Stoller and his partners were able to sell all of their shares before it was discovered that CUC had inflated its income by $500 million.

He also co-authored “High Visibility,” a book about how celebrity is manufactured, with Prof. Irving Rein.

Rein said Stoller was “the real thing, good and bad.”

“He was the kind of person who threw himself into everything he did,” Rein said. “He put time, money and effort into making change.”

Although Stoller financially did not have to teach and could have earned more money as a corporate speaker, he worked at Kellogg until 1999 when he became too ill to teach.

Stoller grew up in Woodmere, N.Y., and came to NU in the 1970s as an undergraduate. He started as a Radio-TV-Film major but switched to Communication Studies when he realized he had more film equipment in his basement than in the NU film studios, his wife said.

While in Evanston he befriended Dave Glatt, the owner of Dave’s Italian Kitchen, 1635 Chicago Ave. Stoller postponed his studies to start a Chicago pizza restaurant with Glatt.

The restaurant was a flop, and Stoller came back to school “like a rocket,” Rein said. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies in 1984 and a master’s degree from the school in 1986. He earned a doctorate from the School of Communication in 1989.

Stoller’s friends, family and former students attended a memorial dinner at Dave’s Italian Kitchen Thursday night.

Stoller is also survived by three daughters, Natasha, Bonnie and Posy.

Reach Diana Scholl at [email protected].