UChicago News

Roscoe Braham Jr., pioneering meteorologist, 1921-2017

Wed, 21 Jun 2017 12:28 -0500

Prof. Emeritus Roscoe Braham Jr., a noted expert in cloud precipitation physics who furthered weather research by combining the use of aircraft with ground-based instruments, died May 28 at the Glenaire Retirement Community in Cary, N.C. He was 96.

“He was a giant of experimental meteorology and was one of the pioneers using aircraft for weather research,” said Prof. Andrew Davis, chair of the University of Chicago’s Department of Geophysical Sciences.

Braham performed key research for The Thunderstorm Project, which operated from 1946 to 1949. A congressionally mandated, multi-agency program to improve aircraft safety in thunderstorms, the project was the nation’s first large-scale meteorological study.

Braham’s participation in the project led to his discovery of the convection-cell organization of thunderstorms, and to his co-authorship of The Thunderstorm, a classic in the annals of meteorology. He is further noted for discovering the coalescence-freezing mechanism of precipitation in clouds.

“The Thunderstorm Project was very significant,” said Frank Richter, the Sewell L. Avery Distinguished Service Professor in Geophysical Sciences at UChicago. “It merged technical developments—for example instrumented aircraft and radar—to promote basic scientific insights and use these to develop practical strategies that made very important contributions to aircraft safety.”

These insights include recognition that radar could detect and guide aircraft around the most dangerous parts of thunderstorms.

“Today this is routine,” Braham commented in 1996, “but we must recall that during World War II radar was new, highly classified and essentially limited to the military.”

Braham also played a key role in promoting mutual respect between the faculties of the meteorology and geology departments at UChicago, which merged to become the department of geophysical sciences in 1961.

“The merging of two historic and highly successful departments of meteorology and geology would require the joint faculty to surrender a certain amount of their professional identity, which was bound to create a certain amount of friction,” Richter said. “Roscoe Braham on the meteorology side and Julian Goldsmith from geology were the key persons who by their civility and intellectual tolerance turned what could have been a very fractured new department into one that became a model of a more holistic approach to the earth sciences.”

Braham was born Jan. 3, 1921, in Yates City, Ill. He earned his bachelor’s degree in geology from Ohio University in 1941. He married Mary Ann Moll in 1943 in Xenia, Ohio.

During World War II, Braham served in the U.S. Army Air Corps, first as a weather officer, later as a bomber pilot. After his discharge in 1946, he entered graduate school at the University of Chicago to study cloud physics, earning his master’s degree in 1948 and his doctorate in 1951.

“He always stressed the importance of education, calling education our meal ticket,” said his son, Richard Braham, a professor of forestry at North Carolina State University. Two of Roscoe Braham’s daughters, Ruth Ann and Nancy, became grade school and high school teachers. His third daughter, Jean, became a registered nurse.

“His summer research locations were of necessity in areas largely removed from commercial airline traffic, allowing his plane to fly wherever needed,” Richard Braham recalled. “To keep the family together during the research season, the family would find a campground within commuting distance and set camp, often for as long as five to six weeks.”

Braham retired from UChicago in 1991. He and his wife then moved to Cary, N.C.

During his career Braham also served as a research meteorologist at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, as founding director of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the University of Arizona, and as a visiting scientist at North Carolina State University.

Braham was a co-founder of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. UCAR manages NCAR under sponsorship from the National Science Foundation.

He was author or co-author of more than 80 scientific reports, books and manuscripts.

Braham had collected many honors during his career, including the Silver Medal from the U.S. Department of Commerce for his work on the Thunderstorm Project. He also received the Rossby Research Medal from the American Meteorological Society, the Losey Award from the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences and an honorary doctorate from North Carolina State University.

Braham is survived by his wife, Mary Ann; daughters, Ruth Ann Ashton, Nancy Billingslea and Jean Barwig; son, Richard Braham; eight grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

Memorial services were held. Donations may be made to the Edith Braham Endowment, which supports meteorology collections at the North Carolina State University Libraries.

Richard L. Baron, radiologist and authority on liver disease, 1949-2017

Fri, 02 Jun 2017 09:40 -0500

Richard Baron, professor and former chairman of the Department of Radiology at the University of Chicago, died suddenly while playing tennis on May 4. He was 68 years old.

One of the world’s leading authorities on diagnostic imaging of liver disease, Baron enjoyed a distinguished career in research, education and patient care. He served as chairman of radiology at the University of Chicago from 2002 to 2011 as well as dean for clinical practice and head of the faculty practice plan from 2011 to 2013. Prior to that, Baron was chairman of radiology at the University of Pittsburgh and founding president and CEO of the University of Pittsburgh Physicians.

He also served on the board of the Radiological Society of North America from 2008 to 2016 and as president of the board for 2015 to 2016. At the time of his death, he was a member of the American College of Radiology’s board of chancellors and a past president of both the Society of Gastrointestinal Radiology and the Society of Computed Body Tomography and Magnetic Resonance.

“The radiology faculty benefitted during his chairmanship, from his thoughtful guidance and his ability and eagerness to mentor younger colleagues,” recalled David Paushter, who succeeded Baron as chairman of radiology at the University of Chicago. “He was a master educator and a lifelong learner—a role model for trainees and clinical peers alike.”

Baron published more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles, 53 book chapters and review articles, and was co-editor of the textbook Multislice-CT of the Abdomen. He provided quality and safety expertise on national and international levels, serving on the Joint Commission Professional Technical Advisory Committee from 2007 to 2011 and providing guidance to the International Atomic Energy Commission and the World Health Organization. He was a popular speaker, presenting hundreds of invited lectures throughout the world.

He served as a reviewer for several journals, including Radiology, The American Journal of Roentgenology, The Journal of Computer Assisted Tomography, Liver Transplantation, Gastroenterology, and European Radiology, and was an associate editor of Radiology from 1991 to 1996 and of Liver Transplantation from 2004 to 2009.

“He was a master educator and a lifelong learner—a role model for trainees and clinical peers alike.”Prof. David Paushter

He earned international honors for his research and teaching—noteworthy among these awards were the Gold Medal of the Asian Oceanian Society of Radiology in 2014, the Medal of Honor and honorary membership in the French Radiological Society in 2015, and honorary membership in the European Society of Radiology in 2017.

Despite steady international recognition, one of his most urgent, high-profile investigations was close to home. On June 4, 2003, the Baseball Hall of Fame asked Baron to perform diagnostic X-rays on the two bats that Cubs player Sammy Sosa had used, one to hit his 500th home run and one for home runs 64, 65 and 66 in 1998. There was reason for suspicion: Sosa had been caught the day before using a corked bat.

“The Hall of Fame wanted to hear good news,” Baron said at the time. “There was tension, but we could tell right away that the bats were clean. The baseball people were quite relieved.”

But, ever meticulous, Baron wasn’t done. The X-rays were persuasive, but in this case, absolute certainty required a CT scan. Fortunately, one scan of both bats quickly confirmed the benign diagnosis.

Richard Lewis Baron was born March 11, 1949, in Springfield, Mass. He graduated cum laude from Yale University in 1972 and earned his medical degree and election to the student honor society Alpha Omega Alpha at the Washington University School of Medicine in 1976. His internship in internal medicine at Yale University was followed by a residency in radiology and an abdominal radiology fellowship at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University. Later in his career, faced with increasing administrative duties, he pursued further education in the MBA program at the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh.

A mentor and family man

“He was a mentor so many people, residents as well as senior faculty,” recalled colleague and close friend Stephen Montner, professor of radiology. “The people he worked with tended to become close friends. As a leader, he was firm but very fair. He was warm and generous with his friends and colleagues, who soon became friends. And I have to say, he always took the side of right. I never met a man with so much integrity.”

“He will be greatly missed,” said Valerie P. Jackson, chair of the Radiological Society of North America’s Board of Directors. She described Baron as an “internationally respected abdominal imaging radiologist and an outstanding administrator,” adding that he was also “humble, kind-hearted and always willing to mentor others.”

“Although Rich was recognized internationally as a gifted leader, educator, physician and scientist, his peers tend to focus on his altruism and mentorship,” said Paushter. “This matches my experience. He was a thoughtful friend who helped guide colleagues and trainees through the difficult decisions of academic medicine, telling us to ‘take the high road,’ which he always did. He was the same with patients, placing them at the epicenter of his professional universe, long before it came into vogue.”

Despite the demands of his career, “the man that we knew at home was totally devoted to his family,” said his wife, Shirley Baron. “His focus was never on himself but rather on those he loved. We knew him as warm, loving, patient, generous and always available when needed.”

“He brought his energy for fun and his enthusiasm to the smallest of tasks of everyday life,” she added, “including cooking with me or just doing errands together. Richard was passionate about travel, skiing, tennis, and photography, which he loved to share with the rest of us. He was ‘all in’ when something was important to him.”

“He was also a great dad,” she said, “consistent in his messages. ‘Do your best,’ he told his children. ‘Nobody can ask for more than that.’ The basic message was: ‘Try hard; take your time; don't give up; I'm here for you.’”

Baron is survived by his wife Shirley Baron; their son, Tim Baron; daughter, Christine Turner; and Baron’s brother John.

In lieu of flowers, the Baron family requests that donations in memory of Richard Baron be made to the RSNA Research & Education Foundation, to support a young radiology researcher in abdominal imaging.

—This story first appeared on the ScienceLife blog.

Robert Gomer, chemist, longtime teacher and cherished colleague, 1924-2016

Wed, 11 Jan 2017 13:59 -0600

Prof. Emeritus Robert Gomer, a chemical physicist who pioneered techniques for studying molecules and taught at the University of Chicago for nearly a half-century, died Dec. 12 of complications related to Parkinson’s disease. He was 92.

In his research, Gomer studied the emission, diffusion and absorption of atoms and molecules on ultraclean surfaces. That work started, Gomer once wrote, “after hearing a seminar account of E.W. Muller’s field emission microscope. I built one and became active in developing this instrument as a tool for surface studies.”

Gomer was a pioneer in the modern discipline of surface physics and chemistry, said Steven Sibener, the Carl William Eisendrath Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry and the James Franck Institute. “His lifelong work on the surface diffusion of atoms and adsorbates on metallic surfaces represent research that has withstood the test of time, and provided foundational information for the generations of researchers that followed in his areas of interest.”

Gomer first came to the University in 1950 as an instructor in the Department of Chemistry and the James Franck Institute. He served as director of the James Franck Institute from 1977 to 1983 and was named the Carl W. Eisendrath Distinguished Service Professor in 1984.

“Chicago offered a sense of belonging and a sense of being a part, however modestly, of a great adventure,” Gomer once wrote. Richard Gomer said his father will be fondly remembered for his collegiality.

“He viewed his colleagues and students as family,” said Richard Gomer, a professor of biology at Texas A&M University. “He loved having lunch with chemists and physicists daily at the Quad Club. It was a real meeting of the minds, but one that would often end with a game of billiards.”

After Gomer became a professor emeritus in 1996, he and his wife, Ann, organized regular interdisciplinary talks for faculty in their Hyde Park home. “This is the institution that became, about five years ago, the Robert and Ann Gomer lecture series, which I chair and which meets about six times a year,” said David Bevington, the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus. “Bob was a true inspiration to us all and will be greatly missed.”

Gomer approached science and research “as a contest with nature,” said Lanny Schmidt, Gomer’s former student and now a professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the University of Minnesota. “He personalized every problem in a way that made it fun to do research. The tedious tasks were still part of the overall contest.

“One time we were working on an intricate spot-welding problem,” Schmidt added. “Upon completion Bob said, ‘Now we’ve got Mother Nature right where we want her!’”

Richard Gomer recalls that his father was a tough grader who wasn’t afraid to give out Ds and Fs. “His only reason for doing this was to set high standards, as he always did for himself, as well as for others,” he said. “This inspired many people to pursue research. He spent a minimal amount of time in his office; he was constantly working in the lab.”

Critic of nuclear weapons

Born in Vienna, Austria in 1924, Gomer went to England in 1938 as a refugee child, came to the United States in 1940 and went to Pomona College. After serving in the U.S. Army, he received his PhD in chemistry at the University of Rochester in 1949.

Gomer was an outspoken opponent of the proliferation of nuclear weapons. He was a regular contributor to and chaired the editorial board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a journal founded by Manhattan Project physicists that covers policy issues related to the dangers of nuclear weapons.

In 1966, Gomer was one of four scientists who wrote a classified report for the Department of Defense about the potential use of nuclear weapons in the Vietnam War. “Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia” concluded that such strikes would be catastrophic for U.S. global interests. “It was our purpose to show that using nuclear weapons would be an immoral folly and set an awful precedent,” Gomer said.

Gomer was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1981. He was an Atomic Energy Commission Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow at UChicago. He also was a Guggenheim fellow at the University of Paris, and a Fulbright fellow at the Technical University of Vienna.

He won several awards, including the Bourke Lecturer from the Faraday Society, the Kendall Award in Colloid or Surface Science from the American Chemical Society, the Senior U.S. Scientist Award from the A. von Humboldt Society, and the Davisson-Germer Prize in Surface Physics from the American Physical Society.

He wrote Field Emission and Field Ionization (1961) and edited several scientific journals, including Applied Physics.

“We shared many conversations on the nature of atomic-level dynamics at interfaces,” Sibener said. “This topic and associated scientific advances remain at the forefront of science today, contributing many crucial ideas to what is now popularly referred to as the field of nanoscience.”

Gomer is survived by his wife, Anne; son Richard; daughter, Maria Luczkow; and grandchildren Katie, Anna and Julia.

Alison Winter, historian of science, 1965-2016

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 13:25 -0500

Editor’s note: A memorial service for Alison Winter will be held Nov. 2 at 4 p.m. in Rockefeller Memorial Chapel

Alison Winter, a historian of science and medicine whose book on memory won the University of Chicago Press’s top honor, died Wednesday of a brain tumor. She was 50 years old.

Winter, AB’87, was a professor of history whose research often focused in areas of science and medicine that were unorthodox and less traveled. She explored how 19th-century mesmerism catalyzed efforts to define and demarcate science in Mesmerized: Powers of Mind in Victorian Britain and the cultural and scientific history of human understanding of memory in Memory: Fragments of a Modern History, which won the UChicago Press’s Gordon J. Laing Prize in 2014.

She was dedicated to supporting the next generation of scholars.Prof. Robert Richards

Winter taught undergraduates in the history of medicine, film and gender studies, guided doctoral students in their dissertations, and mentored postdoctoral fellows at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. Students described her as a generous critic and strong advocate. Even after becoming ill, Winter continued to co-teach an undergraduate seminar in history of science via video chat – first from home and later from the hospital.

“She was dedicated to supporting the next generation of scholars,” said Robert Richards, the Morris Fishbein Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Science and Medicine. “She loved finding a wedge in an intellectual exchange and pushing it. But you could never get mad at her. She always had a sly smile.”

Winter first arrived at UChicago in 1983 as an undergraduate. Richards said Winter’s father, who taught mathematics at the University of Michigan, wanted her to major in science. She was interested in English literature. The compromise was the history of science, which quickly became Winter’s passion.

Winter received a master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Cambridge. It was there she met her husband Adrian Johns, who is the Allan Grant Maclear Professor of History at UChicago.

Winter’s dissertation on mesmerism became her first book Mesmerized, which the UChicago Press published in 1998. Alex Owen writing in the journal Victorian Studies described it as a tour de force that requires “a reevaluation of precisely what constituted ‘center’ and ‘margin’ during a period in which many Victorian intellectuals and public figures experimented with mesmerism.”

After Cambridge, Winter taught at the California Institute of Technology before returning to UChicago in 2001.

Winter was awarded fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim, Andrew W. Mellon and National Science foundations, contributing to the research for Memory. In the book, she explores how scientists grope for metaphors to explain such an elusive subject, and how those metaphors evolved to reflect changing technology—from memory as a filing cabinet to a reel of film available for playback.

Doctoral students of Winter said she had a unique ability to balance criticism and encouragement, asking key questions to guide research rather than direct it. Caitjan Gainty, AM’05, PhD’12, remembers pulling up rugs with Winter at her home in Hyde Park, discussing future intellectual projects and talking about Winter’s fascination with a light-therapy enthusiast who once owned the property.

“She had confidence in me as a scholar before I even understood what it meant to do that kind of work,” said Gainty, lecturer in the history of science, technology and medicine at King’s College London.

Winter is survived by Johns and their four children, David, Lizzie, Zoe, and Benjamin; her mother, Judy Swartz, and stepfathers David Ballou and Fred Swartz; her father, David Winter, and stepmother, Michele Weipert-Winter; and her brother, Jonathan Ballou.

A memorial service for Winter is planned for Autumn Quarter.

Jack W. Fuller, journalism leader and University Trustee, 1946-2016

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 12:11 -0500

Jack W. Fuller set a standard of integrity and accomplishment for a generation of Chicago journalists, rising from his first junior job at the Chicago Tribune at age 16 to become a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the newspaper, and ultimately the leader of Tribune Co.’s publishing division.

Fuller, 69, who served on the University of Chicago Board of Trustees since 1994, died June 21 at his Chicago home, after a diagnosis of cancer several months ago.

“Jack had a distinguished career as a journalist, author and business executive,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “He had a personal commitment to higher education, and his wide-ranging interests, balanced judgment and wisdom made him an invaluable presence on the University’s board. He was a wonderful colleague and friend whose loss will be felt deeply in the University community.”

“Jack was a respected voice on our board for 22 years,” said Joseph Neubauer, MBA’65, chairman of the University’s Board of Trustees. “He had an innate understanding of issues affecting Chicago, and his vision also encompassed our history and future in a national and international context. Those are among the many reasons why he will be greatly missed.”

A Chicago native, Fuller earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University in 1968 before serving in the U.S. Army as a Vietnam correspondent for Pacific Stars and Stripes. After leaving the army he received a law degree from Yale University in 1973.

For two years, Fuller worked as a general assignment reporter at the Tribune, then left to serve as special assistant to U.S. Attorney General Edward Levi, who had been president of the University of Chicago from 1968 to 1975. Fuller returned to the Tribune’s Washington bureau and became an editorial writer in 1978. He was named editorial page editor in 1981.

Fuller won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for a series of editorials on constitutional issues. He became a mentor for many writers and future leaders of the newspaper, including current editor and publisher Bruce Dold and former editor Ann Marie Lipinski, now the curator of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. In 1989, Fuller was promoted to vice president and editor of the Tribune. He held that role until 1997, when he became president of Tribune Publishing.

Five of Fuller’s books were published by the University of Chicago Press, including Restoring Justice (2013), an edited volume of speeches by Edward Levi that chronicled his work rebuilding a discredited Department of Justice after Watergate. He published eight novels and numerous short stories, and continued to write opinion pieces and other articles for the Tribune and other outlets. He also taught a course in creative writing at UChicago.

Fuller retired from the Tribune Co. in 2004. He was a director of the MacArthur Foundation and a member of the Special Committee on editorial standards at Dow Jones & Co. He was also a past president of the Inter American Press Association, which works to monitor and safeguard freedom of expression in the Western Hemisphere.

Fuller served on the University’s Board of Trustees from 1994 onward. He was Board Vice Chair from 2009 to 2012; chair of the Community and Civic Affairs, External Relations, and University Relations committees, and served on many other committees including the Executive Committee from 2005 to 2013. He was a life member of the Humanities Visiting Committee.

Fuller is survived by his wife, Debra Moskovits, PhD’85, and two children from a previous marriage, son Timothy and daughter Katherine Ryan. Plans for a memorial service are pending.

Melvin Gordon, Tootsie Roll CEO and supporter of research at UChicago, 1919-2015

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 14:37 -0600

Melvin Gordon, longtime CEO of Chicago-based Tootsie Roll Industries, died this week at the age of 95. He ran the candy maker for more than 50 years and never technically retired, becoming the oldest serving CEO of any business listed on either U.S. stock exchange.

Gordon and his wife, Ellen, were also longtime supporters of scientific research at the University of Chicago. In 2006, they donated $25 million toward the construction of what is now known as the Ellen and Melvin Gordon Center for Integrative Science. The Gordon Center, located at 929 E. 57th St. on campus, is known for its beautiful atrium and bridge that straddles the northern entrance to the science quad. It brings together faculty and research from the Biological and Physical Sciences, and prestigious research institutes, including the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the James Franck Institute and the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics.

At the time of the gift, Ellen Gordon said, “We all dream of a day when there is less suffering and pain in the world. Thanks to institutions like the University of Chicago we have made enormous progress toward that day, but there is still much more to do. In business, Melvin and I look for the best return on our investment. In philanthropy, we also look for the best return and are therefore pleased to be a part of this wondrous collaborative research that can make life better for many people.”

“There is such visionary leadership, and the scientific track record is so extraordinary,” she continued. “They have made so many important discoveries. The payback will be great as the promise of a greater—and sweeter—future becomes a reality for so many.”

In 2008, the Gordons were named Honorary Fellows of the Division of Biological Sciences. Students, faculty, staff and visitors will remember their contributions as they pass through the lobbies of the Gordon Center, which to this day are stocked with bowls of a never-ending supply of Tootsie Roll products.

Harry Fozzard, pioneer in study of cardiac muscle activity, 1931-2014

Fri, 19 Dec 2014 11:21 -0600

Harry A. Fozzard, a pioneer in understanding chemical and electrical signaling in heart muscle cells, passed away in his sleep Dec. 9 at his home in Dana, N.C. He was 83.

Fozzard, the Otho S.A. Sprague Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Medicine, helped lay the foundation for modern clinical electrophysiology by mapping out the structure and function of the voltage-gated ion channels in heart muscle. These membrane proteins mediate fast communication in heart muscle. They generate the rhythm, coordinating and controlling cardiac contraction. Abnormalities in this system are responsible for several cardiac-arrhythmia diseases and sudden cardiac death.

Fozzard was “a world leader in cardiac electrophysiology,” according to the American Heart Association, which honored him in 2005. His research, which helped lay the foundations for modern clinical electrophysiology, was distinguished by its “innovativeness, rigor, sophistication and broad impact.”

The Fozzard laboratory perfected ion-selective microelectrodes for monitoring intact cells. They characterized the role of sodium and calcium channels and the enzyme sodium-potassium adenosine triphosphatase, which pumps sodium out and potassium into heart muscle cells, a process that regulates intracellular ion concentrations, which control the heartbeat.

They also led structure-function studies of the cloned cardiac sodium channel, using molecular modeling and guided mutations to understand how the channels were controlled and how they could be manipulated.

Fozzard was part of a distinguished team recruited by Hans Hecht, chief of cardiology at the University in the late 1960s, to work closely with clinicians to learn more about cardiac diseases and to use that knowledge to develop more effective therapies.

“When I first arrived as a postdoctoral student in his lab in the early 1980s, he was he was just about the only person around doing ion-channel electrophysiology,” said Dorothy Hanck, professor of medicine at the University. “He trained with one of the founders of the field and then, during this long career, served as mentor to more than 60 PhD and MD/PhD candidates, postdoctoral fellows and scientists on sabbatical.”

“He had a vision,” Hanck said. “He knew how to build a program, how to make it a success. And somehow he managed to keep up with his clinical work. Most people outside the medical center think of him as a basic scientist, but he was also a very good doctor.”

Fozzard was the author or co-author of nearly 250 original papers, reviews, editorials and book chapters. He earned continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health for his research for more than four decades. In 1966, he helped secure the University’s first cardiovascular sciences training grant from the NIH, one of the oldest and most successful such grants in the country. It remains active today, under the direction of James Liao, cardiology section chief at the University of Chicago.

A valued teacher and cherished colleague

Harry Allen Fozzard was born April 22, 1931, in Jacksonville, Fla. He attended Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Va., for three years, where he met his wife, Lyn Lane, who attended nearby Sweet Briar College. In 1952, he entered the Washington University School of Medicine, where two of his teachers—Earl Sutherland Jr. and Robert Furchgott—went on to win Nobel Prizes.

He graduated in 1956, completed an internship in internal medicine at Yale University and went on to two years of active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps and residency training at Washington University’s Barnes Hospital. He then completed fellowships in cardiology at Washington University and in cardiac electrophysiology at the University of Bern, where he learned cardiac electrophysiology and developed a voltage clamp to measure electrical currents in cardiac cells.

In 1964, he was appointed assistant professor of medicine and physiology at Washington University, where he established and directed the first coronary care unit at Barnes Hospital. Working with engineering colleagues there, he pioneered a digital computer system for real-time arrhythmia monitoring.

In 1966, he came to the University of Chicago as an associate professor of medicine and director of the myocardial infarction research unit. He was promoted to professor in 1971 and named co-section chief, with Leon Resnekov, of cardiology. During this period he directed the biomedical computer facility, the cystic fibrosis research center and the Committee on Cell Physiology. From 1990 to 1998, he chaired the Department of Pharmacological & Physiological Sciences. In 1998, he took emeritus status.

Fozzard’s contributions to the field of electrophysiology brought many accolades. He was vice-president for research, editor-in-chief of Circulation Research and on the board of directors for the American Heart Association. That group presented him with their Award of Merit in 1983 and their Distinguished Scientist Award in 2005.

He served on the editorial boards for Circulation, the American Journal of Physiology, the American Journal of Cardiology and on the board of reviewing editors for Science. He was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the Association of American Physicians and the American Society for Clinical Investigation. He was chairman of several NIH study sections, a Fulbright Scholar at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate, and a Litchfield Professor at Oxford University in 1991.

He was a valued teacher to countless college, graduate and medical students. And he was, for decades, a cherished colleague that heart specialists and others turned to for both clinical and scientific advice.

“He was a true gentleman, sound in judgment and principles—and one of my favorite people,” said his friend Frank Fitch, the Albert D. Lasker Professor Emeritus in Pathology and the Ben May Department of Cancer Research at the University. “I was glad to have him represent me in institutional politics. He always seemed to be on the right side, and for the right reasons.”

Away from the laboratory, Fozzard was a competitive sailboat racer on Lake Michigan and an enthusiastic mountain climber. He also had a talent for scherenschnitte, or scissor cuts, a 16th century Swiss-German folk art. His wife Lyn helped start the first Meridian Hospice, to provide end-of-life care for people on the South Side of Chicago.

After he retired, the Fozzards moved to his wife’s hometown in the mountains of western North Carolina, where he volunteered at a free clinic and at the Environmental & Conservation Organization. He also served on the NC State Board on Clinical Psychology and he and his wife volunteered as screeners with Pisgah Legal Services. Most recently, he joined the Apple Valley Model Railroad Club.

His death is a “huge loss for the whole field,” said cardiologist Jafar Al-Sadir, professor of medicine, who came to the university to study with Fozzard.

“He was remarkable, the smartest guy I have ever seen,” Al-Sadir said. “You could count on him to think outside the box on any problem. He routinely suggested solutions no one else would have thought of. Since I first heard of his passing, it has been hard for me to get him off of my mind.”

Fozzard is survived by his wife, Lyn Lane; their two sons, Richard (wife Jan) and Peter (Elizabeth); four grandchildren; his brother George (Veronica) and a nephew, Harry. Funeral arrangements are not yet complete. In lieu of flowers, donations could be sent to the MR Lane Fund of the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, at 4 Vanderbilt Park Drive, No. 300, Asheville N.C. 28803.

Gary S. Becker, Nobel-winning scholar of economics and sociology, 1930-2014

Sun, 04 May 2014 11:35 -0500

Nobel Laureate Gary S. Becker, AM'53, PhD'55, made historic changes to the study of economics and the social sciences, combining disciplines to understand decisions in everyday life, while spawning rich new questions for scholars in diverse fields to pursue.

Becker, 83, University Professor of Economics and of Sociology at the University of Chicago, died on May 3 following complications from a recent surgery. He won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1992 “for having extended the domain of microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behavior and interaction, including non-market behavior.”

Becker pioneered study in the fields of human capital, economics of the family, and economic analysis of crime, discrimination, addiction, and population. University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer said Becker will be remembered as one of the foremost economics scholars of the 20th century.

"Gary was a transformational thinker of truly remarkable impact on the world and an extraordinary individual,” Zimmer said. “He was intellectually fearless. As a scholar and as a person, he represented the best of what the University of Chicago aspires to be."

In 2011, the University recognized Becker’s contributions by naming a research institute in honor of him and his mentor, Milton Friedman, also a Nobel Prize-winning economist at UChicago. The Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics brings together many of the world’s outstanding economists to advance and disseminate innovative research. Becker was named chair of the institute.

“Gary Becker was an exceptional intellectual leader,” said Lars Peter Hansen, the David Rockefeller Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, Statistics, and the College, research director of the Becker Friedman Institute and a fellow Nobel laureate in economics. “His pathbreaking research was remarkable in terms of its breadth, importance and creativity. For years he has been the personification of Chicago economics with his penetrating insights and analyses focusing on important economic and social challenges. His dedication to the University of Chicago and to Chicago economics was truly unique.”

His friend, colleague, and fellow Nobel Laureate James J. Heckman remembered Becker as a brilliant and tough-minded thinker.

“He was a creative mind, and he ranged in his thinking across a large set of issues—the economics of education and skill formation, economics of discrimination, law and economics, the economics of social interactions, and economics of the family,” Heckman said.

“He kept a finger on the pulse of American public policy [and] analyzed ‘relevant’ problems in a much deeper way than is usually associated with public policy,” Heckman said. “It was not a ‘quick answer’ kind of analysis. He laid the framework for discussing social problems.”

Fellow Nobel-winning economist Robert E. Lucas Jr., the John Dewey Distinguished Service Professor in Economics and the College, noted Becker's influence on his own research. “Gary was a good friend and colleague and a very great economist. I find myself building in some way on his work in almost everything I do."

Longtime Becker collaborator Kevin Murphy recalled his senior colleague’s love of economics and the University.

“He was devoted to and helped define Chicago Economics, a rich tradition that uses economics to understand and shape the world around us," said Murphy, the George J. Stigler Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the Chicago Booth School of Business. “Gary was an inspiration to several generations of Chicago students—instilling in them the love for economics that he lived and breathed.”

"Gary was an outstanding scholar and a beloved professor. The Booth community has suffered a great loss," said Chicago Booth Dean Sunil Kumar, the George Pratt Shultz Professor of Operations Management.

Breaking new ground in economics

Becker broke new ground by approaching economics as the study of human behavior. He crossed disciplinary boundaries to apply core economic tenets—maximizing behavior, market equilibrium, stable preferences, and rational choice—to subjects thought to be the domain of sociology, psychology, law, and other fields.

Much of his work illuminates diverse aspects of human behavior that were previously considered to be largely irrational.  

The Economics of Discrimination (1957) applied economic analysis to the study of prejudice against minorities. His 1964 book, Human Capital, examined how investments in a person’s education and training pay off. In his 1981 book, A Treatise on the Family, he expanded that work to a study of the interactions within a family, including those between parents and children, husbands and wives, and among siblings. Becker concluded that women’s entry into the work force and their increased earning power have reduced demand for children, because women’s time has become more valuable.

Becker became one of the most-cited economists, yet his early career was fraught with controversy. Early on, economists questioned the value of his analysis of social problems. “For a long time, my type of work was either ignored or strongly disliked by most of the leading economists,” Becker wrote in his autobiography. “I was considered way out and perhaps not really an economist.”

Those early challenges only strengthened Becker’s work, according to Heckman.

“He persevered in a scholarly way,” said Heckman, the Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor in Economics. “He didn’t just listen to the critics—he responded to the critics. It always enriched him.”

From Chicago to New York and back

Born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Becker completed his undergraduate work summa cum laude in mathematics at Princeton University, where he “accidentally took a course in economics” as a freshman and was “greatly attracted by the mathematical rigor of a subject that dealt with social organization.” He earned a master's degree and a PhD from the University of Chicago, where Milton Friedman became his enthusiastic mentor.

“Friedman considered him the best student he ever had,” Heckman said. In later years Friedman would call Becker “the greatest social scientist who has lived and worked in the last half century.”

After serving as an assistant professor in economics at UChicago from 1954 to 1957, Becker joined the faculty at Columbia University, where he conducted research at the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York.

At Columbia he started a workshop on labor economics and related subjects. He was joined after a few years by Columbia economist Jacob Mincer. “We had a very exciting atmosphere and attracted most of the best students at Columbia. Both Mincer and I were doing research on human capital before the subject was adequately appreciated in the profession at large, and the students found it fascinating. We were also working on the allocation of time and other subjects at the forefront of research,” Becker wrote in his autobiography.

Upon returning to Chicago in 1970, Becker resumed his contact with leading economists on the faculty. In particular, he collaborated with George Stigler, also a Nobel Prize winning economist, with whom he wrote influential papers on the stability of tastes and an early treatment of the principal-agent problem, while pursuing his interest in the family.

Economics pervaded every aspect of Becker’s life—even his marriage to University of Illinois at Chicago historian Guity Nashat Becker. The two met haggling over the price of a dining room set Becker had advertised. Becker refused to lower the price, but said he would allow her to take the furniture and pay for it later.

“I asked how come he wouldn’t come down on the price, but he trusted me with the table before paying for it,” she later recalled. He said: ‘I didn’t care about getting the money. But it was the principle, I did not want to sell it below what it was worth.’ What surprised me even more was when he asked me to dinner.”

The two married in 1980.

Interdisciplinary interests

Reflecting his multidisciplinary interests, Becker was appointed professor in sociology in 1984 and held appointments at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the Law School in addition to serving on the economics faculty.

He worked with noted sociologist James Coleman, and the two taught an interdisciplinary faculty seminar on rational choice in the social sciences. He also taught a workshop for many years with Richard Posner, a federal appeals court judge and member of the University’s Law School faculty. The two started the popular Becker-Posner blog in 2002. Becker was to remain active as a scholar and as a public intellectual until shortly before he died. His last two blog posts this year presented arguments in favor of legalizing marijuana and ending the U.S. embargo of Cuba. The blog led to a book based on their exchanges, Uncommon Sense: Economic Insights, from Marriage to Terrorism.

Becker was a founding member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow in the American Statistical Association, the Econometric Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population.

He also was a member of the American Economic Association, serving as its president in 1987.

In 1967, Becker was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal, then given once every two years to the most outstanding American economist under the age of 40. He also won the Seidman Award and the first social science Award of Merit from the National Institute of Health. He was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2000 for his work in social policy and the Presidential Medal of Honor in 2007. He received the University’s Alumni Medal, the highest award the Alumni Association bestows, in 2010.

Gary Becker is survived by his wife Guity; two daughters, Catherine Becker and Judy Becker; a sister, Natalie Becker; two stepsons, Cyrus Claffey and Michael Claffey; two step-grandchildren; and two grandchildren.

The University of Chicago will plan a memorial service to honor Becker’s life and work, with details to be announced at a later date.

Gregory L. Hillhouse, synthetic chemist, influential mentor, 1955–2014

Mon, 17 Mar 2014 12:00 -0500

Update: A UChicago memorial service for Prof. Gregory Hillhouse will be held June 5 beginning at 3:30 p.m. at Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. A reception will follow at the Quadrangle Club.

Gregory L. Hillhouse, University of Chicago chemistry professor and a devoted mentor to graduate and College students, died March 6 of cancer at his home in Chicago. He was 59.

“Greg was a pillar of excellence in our department and the University,” said Richard Jordan, chairman of the department of chemistry. “As a world-class researcher, dedicated mentor and role model for his students, and engaged citizen of the University community, he epitomized what the University is all about. His research will inspire new lines of inquiry in inorganic chemistry for decades and the influence he had on his students will reverberate for generations. He was a great friend and superb colleague who will be sorely missed by many.”

Hillhouse was born March 1, 1955, in Greenville, S.C. He graduated magna cum laude from Greenville’s Carolina High School. Hillhouse received his bachelor’s degree from the University of South Carolina in 1976 and his PhD from Indiana University in 1980. Before coming to Chicago in 1983, he was a postdoctoral research associate at the California Institute of Technology.

John Boyer, dean of the College, said Hillhouse was “a profoundly dedicated teacher and mentor to thousands of College students over the course of his career. He also made many significant contributions to the improvement and enrichment of our curricular programs. He cared deeply about the success and the welfare of our students, in and out of the classroom.”

Much of Hillhouse’s work focused on creating organometallic compounds to stabilize and isolate reactive intermediates, molecules that are proposed to exist briefly during a larger catalytic reaction process.

In 2001, Hillhouse used his synthetic creativity to dismiss the notion that it was impossible for late transition metals like nickel to form multiple bonds to elements like nitrogen. The result was a molecule that he affectionately referred to as “Double Nickel,” which possessed an indisputable nickel-nitrogen double bond.

The result was a major shift in the way chemists think about multiple bonding with late-transition metals. “Textbooks before 2001 said it was impossible to make those molecules, but Greg broke the rules,” said Daniel J. Mindiola, professor of chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, who co-authored the pivotal article with Hillhouse while a postdoctoral associate at Chicago.

Hillhouse also had a long-standing interest in the chemistry of nitrogen in transition metal compounds, which originated from his doctoral thesis. In 2013, he received the American Chemical Society’s National Award in Organometallic Chemistry.

The compounds Hillhouse and his students created are models for otherwise unobservable intermediates in catalytic reactions. As such, they provide a window into a wide range of important processes, such as the regulation of the biological signaling molecule nitric oxide (one function of which is to control the dilation of blood vessels); the operation of automotive catalytic converters; the combustion of rocket fuel; and the production of aziridines, a compound used for time-released drug delivery.

In addition to changing textbooks, Hillhouse changed lives. “Greg was unusually effective in his mentorship of undergraduate and graduate students toward successful careers in science,” said fellow organometallic chemist T. Don Tilley, professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley.

“His enthusiasm for chemistry inspired several of us to enter academia. He never considered his role as mentor to have an expiration date,” said his former student Milton “Mitch” Smith, PhD’90, professor of chemistry at Michigan State University.

“He was a fantastic mentor. He never set a dividing line between himself and the group members, and he really dedicated himself to his students,” said Mindiola. In addition to teaching techniques, “he was also meticulous about scientific writing, and that has been important in my career.”

Undergraduates were always important to Hillhouse. Colleagues say that College students left his group exceptionally well-prepared and scientifically mature. In 2012, group member Niklas Thompson, then a third-year student, received a Goldwater Scholarship, a top award for undergraduate scientists.

Hillhouse also mentored Jonas Peters, SB’93, as an undergraduate. A former Marshall Scholar at the University of Nottingham, Peters now is the Bren Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology.

Former students honored Hillhouse with two awards, the 1997 Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and the 2011 Norman Maclean Faculty Award, which recognizes extraordinary contributions to teaching and to the student experience of life within the University community.

Just as he was passionate about chemistry and students, Hillhouse was passionate about life in general. Chicago students knew him as a fiercely competitive intramural athlete who was both an excellent basketball player and the leader of many champion summer softball teams. He even played pickup basketball with President Barack Obama, but “we didn’t know who he was at the time; he was just one of the guys,” said veteran teammate Surrey Walton, an economist at the University of Illinois at Chicago whose family called Hillhouse “Uncle Greg.”

He carried his creativity, enthusiasm and generosity of spirit into his avocations of painting, cooking and collecting fine wine. An accomplished chef who enjoyed entertaining his friends, he spent every Saturday night through much of the 1990s cooking classic, butter-laden French meals for residents at Open Hand Chicago, an AIDS hospice now called Heartland Alliance-Vital Bridges, according to Walton. Hillhouse even found a way to unite his passions for sports and rich French cooking. The name of his two-time champion intramural basketball team? “Old World Fat.”

Hillhouse is survived by a cousin, Denise Burckhalter and her husband Charles. He was preceded in death by his mother, Christine B. Kinsler, and his stepfather, Joseph D. Kinsler.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 12, at First St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, 1301 N. LaSalle Dr., in Chicago.

Alumnus George Anastaplo, 88, taught for nearly six decades at Graham School

Fri, 07 Mar 2014 14:54 -0600

George Anastaplo, AB’48, JD’51, PhD’64, who sacrificed a promising legal career by defending his First Amendment rights before the McCarthy-era Illinois Bar and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court, died Feb. 14 after teaching nearly six decades in the University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies.

The son of Greek immigrants who operated a restaurant in Carterville, Ill., Anastaplo pursued his bachelor and law degrees from the University of Chicago after serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, navigating B-17 and B-29 bombers.

Anastaplo was denied admission to the Illinois Bar in 1950 after refusing on principle to answer whether he was a member of the Communist party—calling questions about political affiliation and religion irrelevant. The Committee on Character and Fitness, which routinely interviewed Bar applicants, also asked if Communist Party members should be allowed to practice law in Illinois.

“I should think so,” replied Anastaplo, who then went on in his characteristically polite yet pithy manner to defend the right of revolution, if justified, as established in the Declaration of Independence.

Anastaplo argued his own case before the Illinois and U.S. Supreme Court. He lost the federal case in 1961 by a 5-4 decision. Justice Hugo Black, comparing Anastaplo to Clarence Darrow and other brave lawyers, wrote a dissenting opinion famously asserting, “We must not be afraid to be free.”

With his unblemished record, Black wrote, “the very most that can fairly be said against Anastaplo’s position in this entire matter is that he took too much of the responsibility of preserving that freedom upon himself.”

As the case went through appeals, Anastaplo worked on his doctorate in the Committee on Social Thought at the University under the guidance of mentor Leo Strauss. In 1957, he joined the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults faculty and continued to teach through December 2013. He also taught at Dominican University (then Rosary College), and later at the Loyola University School of Law, frequently riding his bike from Hyde Park to Loyola until he was nearly 80. He also authored scores of books and hundreds of articles on topics ranging from political science to philosophy to religion to classic literature.

Anastaplo was the “heart and soul” of the Basic Program, said former chair Cynthia Rutz. “He inspired everyone around him—students and fellow faculty alike—to always continue learning and never be afraid to pose difficult questions,” she said. She noted that longtime Hyde Park alderman Leon Despres, PhB’27, JD’29, perfectly dubbed Anastaplo the “Socrates of Chicago” for his tireless role of good-natured gadfly, poking and prodding ideas, whether he was in a courtroom, classroom or elsewhere.

Anastaplo’s unwavering commitment to free thought earned him many admirers. In 2005, he was the inaugural recipient of the Graham School’s Excellence in Teaching Award, and received the school’s Distinguished Service Award in 2012. But the Bar interview wasn’t the only time his devotion to the ideal rendered him an outsider.

Keith Cleveland, AB’64, AM’69, JD’79, also a former chair of the Basic Program who taught with Anastaplo for 45 years, recalled that Anastaplo was kicked out of Russia in 1960, while driving through Europe on vacation with his family after defending a group of fellow tourists handing out American literature. He also was expelled from Greece in 1968, for asking some embarrassing questions of the right-wing military junta in power. Recalling these events and Anastaplo’s case against the Illinois Bar, political scientist C. Herman Pritchett wrote: “As W. C. Fields might have said, any man who is kicked out of Russia, Greece and the Illinois Bar can’t be all bad.”

Although Anastaplo never became a lawyer, his legal training served him well in academia, Cleveland said. “George brought his extraordinary cross-examination skills to the classroom,” he said, “not in a hostile manner, but to open up and explore ideas and pursue them in an interesting and intelligent way.”

Larry Arnhart, AM’73, PhD’77, a former student of Anastaplo’s who teaches political science at Northern Illinois University, said he tries to live up to his mentor’s patient intellectual prodding at the podium.

“Sometimes, you ask a provocative question and there’s silence,” Arnhart said. “George always said if students don’t respond, don’t just resume lecturing and let students get away with being so passive. Wait, and wait some more until someone shares their thoughts. Soon enough, students discover that a class organized around stimulating discussion is more interesting,” he said.

Michael Allocca, current chair of the Basic Program, said Anastaplo had a “hard-core” following of people who would sign up for every course he taught, and he was known for never having missed a session.

“During the last week of autumn semester in December, when he called to say he wouldn’t be well enough to make it in,” Allocca said, “he asked if we could set up a phone in the classroom so that he could lead the discussion from home via telephone.”

Miriam Redleaf, Anastaplo’s daughter and a professor of otolaryngology at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, said his family wasn’t surprised by his efforts to finish the semester despite prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.

“He was proud of teaching all the way till the end,” Redleaf said. “He never considered missing a class.”

Anastaplo is survived by his wife of more than 65 years, Sara Prince Anastaplo; his daughters, Helen Newlin, Miriam Redleaf and Theodora Anastaplo; his son, George Malcolm Davidson Anastaplo; and eight grandchildren. A memorial service will be held at Bond Chapel on the University of Chicago campus on Friday, June 6. More information about the memorial service will be published on this website when it becomes available.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The George Anastaplo Basic Program Lecturer Fund, Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies, the University of Chicago, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL. 60637.

Lindy Bergman, longtime supporter of higher education and the arts, 1918-2014

Mon, 20 Jan 2014 13:26 -0600

A lifelong resident of Chicago’s South Side with deep ties to the University of Chicago, Lindy Bergman enriched and helped transform the life of her native city and former school through six decades of dedication and generous financial commitment to the arts, education and medical care. Known for her indomitable spirit, she became a tireless champion of helping the blind after losing her eyesight in later years.

Betty Jane (“Lindy”) Bergman, AB’39, died peacefully in her home on Jan. 18. She was 96. A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 21 at Chicago Sinai Congregation at 15 W. Delaware Place.

Bergman’s contributions to the UChicago community included service on the boards of the University of Chicago Medical Center, the Lying-In Hospital, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art. Her late husband, Edwin A. Bergman, served on the University of Chicago’s Board of Trustees from 1976 to 1986 and was chair of the Board of Trustees from 1981 to 1985. Her son Robert was a member of the UChicago Medicine board until 2013, and her son-in-law Andrew Rosenfield, a University alumnus, is a University Trustee who joined the board in 1996. Her daughter Betsy is a member of the University’s Woman’s Board.

“Lindy Bergman was an extraordinary woman,” said University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer. “She and her husband had an abiding dedication to the issues of medical care and the arts, and Chicago and its residents have benefited through the commitments they made. She was a wonderful model for how to live a rich and deeply engaged life.”

Bergman’s connection to UChicago dated back to her earliest years. She graduated from the Laboratory Schools in 1935 and then the College in 1939. Over the years, Bergman, along with her husband, also a UChicago alumnus, supported the University in creative and generous ways. She established the Bergman Gallery, home to the Renaissance Society in Cobb Hall, placed artwork throughout the corridors of the University of Chicago Medical Center and was a devoted advocate for the Renaissance Society.

“Lindy cherished the arts and valued her relationships with the artists,” said Arthur Sussman, a lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, who served with Bergman on institutional committees. “She contributed to many of their accomplishments and valued her many relationships with students, staff and faculty. She was a true friend of the University.”

Bergman endowed the Lindy Bergman Distinguished Service Professorship, currently held by Prof. Mark Siegler, and the Edwin A. Bergman Scholarship in the College. During the University’s Campaign for the Next Century in the 1990s, she was committed to long-term funding for the Bergman Family Eye Center.

In addition, Bergman was a life member of the University of Chicago Medical Center Board of Trustees, a life member of the Humanities Visiting Committee, a life member of the board of governors of the Smart Museum of Art, a member of the Women's Board and a life member of the Music Visiting Committee.

Patron of the Arts

Bergman and her husband were passionate art collectors—she attributed her interest in modern art to a course she had taken at UChicago in the 1950s. A teacher at the class recommended her a book called Masters in Modern Art. “Every night we would start reading about art,” she told her friend Beth Finke, an author and journalist. “That’s how it (art collection) all began. We really educated ourselves.” Subsequently, Bergman and her husband became established as modern art collectors and assembled a legendary collection of mostly Surrealist art, including the definitive collection of works by Joseph Cornell.

In 1991, Bergman gave the bulk of her family collection, including seminal works by Magritte, Ernst, Picasso, Miro, Dali and Cornell, to the Art Institute of Chicago. With this donation, which was hailed as “one of the most important gifts of art in [the Art Institute’s] 112-year history,” Bergman transformed the stature of the museum as a repository of the Surrealist and near-Surrealist material. The collection is now a core part of the permanent collection and displayed cohesively in the Edwin A. and Lindy Bergman Gallery in the Museum’s Modern Wing.

Other important works from the Bergman’s collection were also donated and currently reside in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA, and The Israel Museum, among others.

After donating her collection, Bergman took to writing and in 2011, authored a book “Out of Sight, Not Out of Mind,” which documented her fight with vision loss due to macular degeneration. She provided guidance and advice for those with the same affliction

“While everyone knew that Lindy was smart, gracious, generous and charming, what they didn't always expect was that she had a sharp, irreverent, wicked sense of humor,” said David Epstein, who was a family friend of Bergman.

“Lindy Bergman was a woman of great warmth and generosity with an exceptional gift for friendship," said University of Chicago President Emerita Hanna H. Gray. “She demonstrated through her wide-ranging philanthropy, her constructive participation in so many different areas of university life, and her unwavering advocacy for its purposes an unmatched devotion to the University. Lindy brought good cheer to every gathering and a spirit of optimism and caring to every encounter. Her modesty and grace, and her determination to support the best in education, medicine and art, made her a special and greatly cherished member of our community.”

In addition to her son Robert and daughter Betsy, Bergman also is survived by daughter Carol Cohen, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in her honor to the University of Chicago’s Odyssey Scholarship program.

John Haugeland, scholar and former Philosophy Department chair, 1945–2010

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 12:00 -0500

John Haugeland, a scholar known for his work on philosophy of mind, died June 23 following a May 22 heart attack that occurred during a conference held in his honor. He was 65.

At the conference, James Conant, Chairman of Philosophy and the Chester D. Tripp Professor in Humanities, Philosophy and the College, praised Haugeland’s “profound and lasting contributions to many different areas of philosophy.” In particular, Conant noted Haugeland’s work on the existentialist philosopher Heidegger and on the philosophical implications of artificial intelligence.

Haugeland, the David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor Emeritus in Philosophy, joined the Chicago faculty in 1999. From 2004–07, he was chair of the Philosophy Department.

“He was an exemplary chair,” said Robert Pippin, the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor of Social Thought, Philosophy and the College. “John had absolutely no shred of egoism. He was very sweet and very considerate, but he was also someone with firmly–held principles about philosophy and academic life.”

Born March 13, 1945, Haugeland received his BS in Physics from Harvey Mudd College in 1966, and his PhD in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1976. He taught at the University of Pittsburgh from 1974 until coming to UChicago in 1999.

Haugeland’s book, Artificial Intelligence: The Very Idea (1985), has been translated into five languages. It received acclaim not only for its analysis of artificial intelligence, but also for its lucid and engaging style.

That down–to–earth quality was typical of Haugeland’s work, said Clark Remington, a graduate student who worked closely with Haugeland until his death. In his well–known paper, “The Intentionality All–Stars,” Haugeland explored the philosophical debate over intentionality by assigning various philosophers to different positions in baseball. “It’s a delightful, hilarious article describing who in the field would be second base, left field, pitcher, etc., and it’s incredibly insightful. It’s typical that he would use humor to get right to the heart of something,” Remington said.

In 1998, Haugeland published Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind, a collection of essays from throughout his career. “If I had to do a ‘how–to’ book on ‘how to do philosophy,’ this essay would be one I would dissect at length, revealing its virtues,” philosopher Daniel C. Dennett wrote of Haugeland’s essay “Representational Genera.”

In 2003, Haugeland received a Guggenheim Fellowship to begin work on Heidegger Disclosed, a bold and unique reinterpretation of Heidegger’s Being and Time. At the time of Haugeland’s death, the book was two–thirds complete. “If it’s published, it’s sure to be one of the most important works on Heidegger,” said Pippin.

Family and friends remember Haugeland’s quick wit and his caring relationship with his colleagues. “Everyone knew he had a deep love and concern for philosophy and for his students,” Remington said.

In his spare time, Haugeland was an avid movie–watcher who loved the Coen brothers and never tired of The Princess Bride, said his wife Joan Wellman.

A gifted woodworker and handyman, Haugeland liked to boast that he “certainly owned more nuts and bolts than most philosophers (and possibly more than any).”

Family friend Robbie Kendall remembers, “If there was something that needed to be fixed, his first instinct was to fix it.”

In addition to his wife, Haugeland is survived by his sisters, Cyndi Munch and Carol Magnuson; his son, John Christian Haugeland III; and his stepdaughters, Jennifer Swain and Emma Wellman.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the University of Chicago Philosophy Department, Stuart 202, 1115 E. 58th St., Chicago, IL 60637, for the John Haugeland Undergraduate Fund.

Don Browning, Divinity School scholar of marriage and the family, 1934–2010

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:00 -0500

Don Browning, a professor in the Divinity School and a leading scholar on marriage in America, died June 3 at his home in Hyde Park. He was 76.

A service for Browning will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday, June 10 at the Hyde Park Union Church. The Divinity School plans to hold an additional memorial service in the fall.

Don Browning, the Alexander Campbell Professor Emeritus of Ethics and the Social Sciences in the Divinity School, studied the influence of religion on American family life, as well as the intersection of psychology and religion. For more than a decade, he was the director of the Divinity School’s Religion, Culture and the Family Project.

“Don Browning was a stalwart and utterly collegial citizen of Swift Hall and the wider University,” said Richard Rosengarten, dean of the Divinity School. “We miss him and we mourn his passing, even as we recall his myriad accomplishments.”

Browning was born Jan. 13, 1934 in Trenton, Mo. He received his BD (1959), AM (1962) and PhD (1964) from the Divinity School. He was an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). From 1977 to 1983, he was dean of the University of Chicago Disciples Divinity House.

Browning’s early work focused on the integration of psychology and pastoral care. His second book, Generative Man: Psychoanalytic Perspectives, was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1974.

He was instrumental in the advancement of the practical theology movement, which emphasizes the integration of religious theory and religious practice. His 1991 book, A Fundamental Practical Theology, is widely considered a classic in the field.

In 1990, Browning received a grant from the Lilly Endowment to start the Religion, Culture and the Family Project. Over the course of the project, Browning examined the social implications of the decline of marriage. The research resulted in numerous books and scholarly articles, as well as a nationally televised, two–hour documentary, “Marriage: Just a Piece of Paper?”

“He had an amazingly capacious mind that could see how religious and moral questions need to be explored from a variety of vantage points,” said William Schweiker, the Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor in the Divinity School and the College. “He could pinpoint the strength and weakness of an argument and indicate this in a forceful, but gentle way.”

“It’s going to be impossible to find someone else to do what he did,” said Jean Bethke Elshtain, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics in the Divinity School. “He represented something unique. He had an unusual combination of expertise. As a scholar of the family, he believed you had to look at history, you had to look at sociological context, you had to look at law.”

As a colleague, “he was absolutely wonderful. He was thoughtful, engaged and attentive,” Elshtain said. “If you wanted to construct an ideal colleague, he would be my image.”

Browning, a longtime Hyde Park resident, was an avid moviegoer who loved spending time with his grandchildren and searching out local ethnic restaurants, said his son Chris.

In addition to his son, Browning is survived by his wife, Carol; his daughter, Elizabeth; and his granddaughters, Kristin and Lydia.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to The Browning Family Fund at the Disciples Divinity House of the University of Chicago. Donations can be sent to: 1156 E. 57th St., Chicago, IL 60637. They can also be made online at http://ddh.uchicago.edu.