Deaths |
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August 26, 2014, Volume 61, No. 02 |
Ms. Bernard, Genetics
Mr. Estrin, Former Trustee
Mr. Gonder, IFEM
Mr. Greenberg, Penn Relays
Dr. Kessinger, History
Dr. McGivern, Nursing
Dr. Relman, Medicine
Dr. Sjöberg, NELC & Penn Museum
Dr. Stunkard, Psychiatry
Correction: Elsa Ramsden
Ms. Bernard, Genetics
Lillie Bernard, a former administrative assistant in the Perelman School of Medicine, died on July 5; she was 72.
Born in Clearwater, South Carolina, Ms. Bernard graduated from Jefferson Davis High School in 1959 and from Berean Secretarial Institute in 1961.
In 1983, Ms. Bernard was hired as an office administrator in Penn’s department of psychiatry. She retired in 1997, from the genetics department. Prior to joining Penn, she was an administrative secretary at the Medical College of Pennsylvania.
Ms. Bernard is survived by her husband, Ernest; sons, Paul and Ernest; daughters, Wendy Pitts and Hadiyah Bunn-Grant; four brothers; five sisters; and six grandchildren. |
Mr. Estrin, Former Trustee
Former Penn Trustee, Melvyn J. Estrin, passed away July 9 at age 71.
Mr. Estrin served as an Alumni Trustee from 1986 to 1991 and was a member of the Development Committee and the External Affairs Committee. He also served on Penn’s Graduate School of Education Board of Overseers.
For more than three decades, he lent his talents and insight to the Mid Atlantic Regional Advisory Board, the Penn Alumni Council, the Class of 1964, the President’s Council and numerous other committees.
Mr. Estrin led Human Service Group, Inc. as chairman of the Board and CEO and was the CEO of University Research Co., LLC and a director of ChemLink, LLC and Armed Forces Lodging, LLC.
A 1964 Wharton graduate, Mr. Estrin had been involved in the Glee Club, Penn Players, Hillel, Phi Epsilon Pi, the Men’s Crew team and The Daily Pennsylvanian. He pursued many of the same interests throughout his life. He was also a three-time Tony Award nominee as producer of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Hurlyburly and Blood Knot. He received a master’s degree from American University in 1969.
Mr. Estrin is survived by his wife, Suellen; his son, Brandon; his daughter, Shannon Estrin Rosoff; grandchildren, Dylan, Ella and Taylor Rosoff and Clarissa and Felix Barber; and sisters, Wilma Bernstein and Mickey Lemer.
Memorial donations may be made to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, 1311 Mamaroneck Ave., Suite 310, White Plains, NY 10605.
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Mr. Gonder, IFEM
Daniel Gonder, senior research specialist in the Institute for Environmental Medicine (IFEM), passed away August 5 at age 60.
Mr. Gonder was a prominent employee at IFEM for nearly 10 years and most recently was the technical supervisor of the IFEM Core for Molecular Biology. Except for a 10-year hiatus when he was employed at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Mr. Gonder had worked at Penn and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia since 1982, including a stint with John Hansen-Flaschen, the long-standing chief of pulmonary medicine in the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Mr. Gonder earned his BS from Eastern University in biology in 1980.
Mr. Gonder is survived by his wife, Laura J. Pfeiff; children, Jesse and Kylie Gonder; and stepson, Joshua B. Rosenthal.
Donations may be made to the American Cancer Society, 480 Norristown Rd., S-150, Blue Bell, PA 19422.
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Mr. Greenberg, Penn Relays
Frank E. Greenberg, a Penn alum and former Penn Relays official, passed away June 29; he was 81.
Mr. Greenberg, WG’55, L’60, was a Penn Relays official every year from 1972 through 2007, eventually serving as one of the meet referees and receiving the Herman J. Mancini Award in 2005, the Penn Relays’ highest honor to an active official.
His career as a lawyer spanned 30 years with the firm Katz, Slifkin and Greenberg, later becoming Slifkin & Greenberg.
In 1999, he was inducted into the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. In 1986, he received the Robert Giegengack Award, the top honor bestowed by USA Track and Field, and was also given the Jesse Owens Award by the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Association.
Mr. Greenberg is survived by his sons, Jeff and Scott; three grandchildren; and a sister.
Contributions may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association, 399 Market St., Suite 102, Philadelphia, PA 19106.
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Dr. Kessinger, History
Tom Kessinger, a former adjunct professor of South Asia regional studies in the department of history, passed away July 4 at age 73.
A New Jersey native, Dr. Kessinger earned his undergraduate degree from Haverford College in 1965, during which time he served in the Peace Corps in South Asia. He later received his PhD from the University of Chicago, and taught South Asian history, first at the University of Virginia and then at the University of Pennsylvania from 1973-1997. In 1977, he took a position with the Ford Foundation.
In 1988, he was elected the eleventh president of Haverford College, and over the next eight years led the college through a period of expansion of the faculty, the construction of new facilities and the addition of more than $100 million to the College’s endowment. Dr. Kessinger resigned from his position as president in 1996 to become the general manager of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture in Geneva, Switzerland. He retired as the general manager of the entire foundation in 2013.
Dr. Kessinger is survived by his wife, Varyam; his sons, Colin and William; five grandchildren; and a sister.
Donations may be made to the Kessinger Family Fund for Community Service or the Kessinger Family Fund for Asian Performing Arts at http://haverford.edu/makeagift
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Dr. McGivern, Nursing
Diane McGivern, former administrator and associate professor in the School of Nursing, passed away on June 30; she was 75.
Dr. McGivern was a dedicated nurse leader, whose contributions to Penn Nursing were many. Dr. McGivern played an important role at the School of Nursing. She was the first to officially hold the title of associate dean for undergraduate programs at Penn Nursing when she worked closely with then dean, Dr. Claire Fagin, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In this role, she not only launched a state-of-the-art undergraduate program but also laid the groundwork for the establishment of the School’s dual majors with other Penn Schools.
She was also ahead of her time in understanding the importance of interdisciplinary education and practice and the need for nursing’s engagement in policy. As a Kellogg Fellow, she established an interdisciplinary program that took students from different disciplines to Washington, DC, to attend meetings and seminars with various government agencies.
She was the founder of the Milton Terris Society, named after the national public health leader and champion, which brought together nurses, physicians, public health experts as well as healthcare and City administration to discuss and address healthcare access issues in Philadelphia.
After leaving Penn in 1987, Dr. McGivern became the head of the division of nursing in Steinhardt at New York University and remained until 2002. Prior to that, she was on the nursing staff at Cleveland Clinic and Bellevue Hospital and then taught at Hunter College and New York University.
Dr. McGivern co-authored the comprehensive textbook, Nurse Practitioners: Evolution of Advanced Practice.
She earned her bachelor of science degree in nursing from St. John’s College in 1961 and her master’s and PhD degrees in nursing from New York University, in 1964 and 1972, respectively.
Dr. McGivern is survived by her husband, Bernard; and her daughter, Ryan.
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Dr. Relman, Medicine
Arnold S. Relman, the former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) who had earlier served as the Frank Wister Thomas Professor of Medicine and chairman of Penn’s department of medicine, died on June 17 at age 91.
Dr. Relman led Penn’s department of medicine from 1968 to 1977, when he was appointed editor of NEJM, professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and senior physician at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
After earning his medical degree from Columbia University, Dr. Relman was appointed assistant professor of medicine at Boston University in 1951 and remained on the faculty there until joining Penn in 1968. From 1962 to 1967, he was editor of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. He was also director of medical services at HUP from 1968 to 1977.
An acclaimed expert in nephrology and electrolyte and acid-base balance, Dr. Relman published numerous original research and clinical studies as well as textbook chapters and monographs on these subjects. His major research interests were in potassium metabolism, renal acidosis and the regulation of acid-base balance.
Dr. Relman also became increasingly interested in the costs of health care, the role of pharmaceutical companies and what he saw as the need for universal health-care coverage. Under his editorial direction from 1977 to 1991, the New England Journal increased circulation and influence even as it openly examined economic, ethical and public policy matters.
Dr. Relman was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member (and former member of the Council) of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He had also been president of the American Federation for Clinical Research, the American Society of Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians—the only person to hold all three positions. Named a Master of the American College of Physicians, he also received the College’s John Phillips Medal. Among his other honors were the Distinguished Service Award, presented by the American College of Cardiology, and, from Great Britain, a Fellowship in the Royal College of Physicians in London.
Dr. Relman held several honorary degrees, including one from the University of Pennsylvania, presented in 1989. The citation described him as “a pioneer in the field of acid-based physiology” who served as a mentor to a generation of leaders in renal medicine. The following year, Dr. Relman returned to Penn as part of the 225th Anniversary Celebration of the School of Medicine. He was featured in a symposium on the future of healthcare in America.
A native of New York City, Dr. Relman studied biology and philosophy at Cornell University where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1943. He received a medical degree from Columbia University three years later.
Dr. Relman is survived by his wife, Marcia Angell; children, David and John Relman and Margaret R. Batten; stepdaughters, Lara and Elizabeth Goitein; six granddaughters; and four stepgrandsons.
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Dr. Sjöberg, NELC & Penn Museum
Dr. Åke W. Sjöberg, Emeritus Clark Research Professor of Assyriology in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and emeritus curator of the Babylonian section of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, died August 8 at age 90.
Dr. Sjöberg received an MA from Uppsala University, Sweden, in 1955 and a doctorate from Heidelberg University, Germany, in 1960, coming to Penn in 1966 after several years working on the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary at the Oriental Institute in Chicago.
Dr. Sjöberg taught both Sumerian and Akkadian for 30 years until his retirement in 1996. He applied the very highest standards of philological rigor to the study of Sumerian literature in two important monographs which set new standards in the field, as well as scores of scholarly articles written in English, German and Swedish.
In the early 1970s, Dr. Sjöberg, working with Dr. Erle Leichty, founded the Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary Project. The publication of the first print volume, the letter B, in 1984, changed the field of Sumerology forever and was widely reported, even making the New York Times “Word of the Day”—a cuneiform version of the Sumerian form of Halleluyah—on April 18, 1984.
Dr. Sjöberg also established new standards of generosity in his curation of the tablet collection of the Penn Museum, welcoming junior and senior scholars alike and always making time to help decipher particularly difficult passages of cuneiform.
Dr. Sjöberg was elected to membership of the American Philosophical Society, and in 1994 received an honorary doctorate in theology from the Royal University of Uppsala.
Dr. Sjöberg is survived by his wife, Gunnil. |
Dr. Stunkard, Psychiatry
Albert J. “Mickey” Stunkard, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine, died July 12 at age 92.
Dr. Stunkard was world-renowned for his research on obesity and eating disorders, which he began in 1955 with the publication of the first description of the night-eating syndrome, a topic to which he returned to at the end of his career.
In 1958, he published a now-classic paper on the failures of dieting, which revealed that only 12% of obese patients treated in a hospital nutrition clinic were able to lose 20 lbs., and only half of these maintained the weight loss one year later. These results improved substantially in the 1970s with the introduction by Dr. Stunkard and colleagues of behavior modification, which provided patients a set of principles and techniques for changing their eating and activity behaviors.
Dr. Stunkard was committed to testing the effectiveness of different weight loss methods through the use of randomized controlled trials. Using this approach, he introduced a novel explanation for the effectiveness of weight loss medications and proposed in 1982 that medications be used indefinitely to treat obesity in the same manner that medications are used long-term to control other chronic conditions. (In 1996, the Food and Drug Administration adopted the long-term prescription of weight loss medications.)
Dr. Stunkard also was an early advocate for the use of weight loss (bariatric) surgery, having found in 1976 that obese individuals reported more favorable food choices and appetite control following surgery. He also published the first modern account of binge eating in obese individuals and contributed to the development of treatments for this disorder and the night-eating syndrome.
Dr. Stunkard’s achievements were recognized in multiple ways, including his continuous receipt of funding from the National Institutes of Health for nearly 50 years. He was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and served as president of the American Psychosomatic Society, the Society of Behavioral Medicine, the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease, the Academy of Behavioral Medicine Research and the American Association of Chairmen of Departments of Psychiatry.
He received numerous awards, including the 1994 Distinguished Service Award from the American Psychiatric Association, the 2004 Sarnat International Prize from the Institute of Medicine and the 2005 Gold Medal for Distinguished Academic Accomplishments from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He also was the recipient of honorary degrees from Louisiana State University and the University of Edinburgh (Scotland).
Dr. Stunkard received his BS from Yale University in 1943 and MD in 1945 from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons.
He interned in medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital and then served two years as a physician in the United States Army. After returning to the US, from 1948-1952, he completed a residency and fellowship training in psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
He worked for four years at Cornell Medical College in New York, before joining the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1957. He was appointed chairman in 1962 and in the ensuing decade established what was widely viewed as the nation’s premier department of psychiatry. He was recruited to Stanford University in 1973 to chair the department of psychiatry but returned to the Penn in 1977, where he resumed his renowned program of research and served as interim-chairman in 1996-1997.
Dr. Stunkard is survived by his wife, Margaret Maurin; stepdaughter, Elana Maurin; and two stepgrandchildren.
A memorial service will be held in the fall on campus. Details will be published in Almanac.
Memorial donations may be made to Doctors Without Borders or the Council for a Livable World.
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Correction: Elsa Ramsden
In Elsa Ramsden’s obituary in the July issue, the wrong address was given for the Zion United Church of Christ. The correct address is 14 North Eighth St., Stroudsburg, PA 18360. We regret the error. —Eds. |
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