Deaths |
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March 31, 2015, Volume 61, No. 28 |
Chuck Bednarik, Football
Stella Botelho, Physiology
Ben Martin Jr., Veterinary Medicine
Albert Nijenhuis, Mathematics
Chuck Bednarik, Football
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Chuck Bednarik with the statue of him on Franklin Field. |
Chuck Bednarik, the legendary football player who has been called the finest athlete in the history of Penn and the Philadelphia Eagles, died on March 21 at an assisted-living facility in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He was 89 years old.
Mr. Bednarik played center for the Quakers from 1945 to 1948 and was a two-time all-American player at Penn before being selected first overall by the Eagles in the 1949 NFL draft. He went on to star in offensive and defensive positions for 14 seasons with the Eagles, including the team’s NFL Championship victories in 1949 and 1960. He retired in 1962.
Mr. Bednarik was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1967 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 1969. A statue honoring his legacy was erected on the north side of Penn’s Franklin Field in 2011 (see left; Almanac November 8, 2011).
Mr. Bednarik is survived by his wife, Emma; five daughters, Charlene Thomas, Donna Davis, Carol Safarowic, Pam McWilliams and Jackie Chelius; ten grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
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Stella Botelho, Physiology
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Stella Botelho |
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Stella Y. Botelho, Penn alumna and professor emerita of physiology, died of renal failure on March 11 at her home in Normandy Farms Estates in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. She was 96 years old.
Dr. Botelho graduated from Penn with an undergraduate degree in chemistry in 1940. Upon earning a medical degree from Woman’s Medical College, she became an instructor at Penn’s School of Medicine in 1949. She was promoted to professor in 1969 and retired with the title of professor emerita of physiology in 1981.
Dr. Botelho taught courses in applied and medical physiology. In her research lab, she studied respiratory physiology, neuromuscular physiology, the spinal cord and secretions of exocrine glands. She was the principal investigator on many scientific grants, and her research was funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Association and the National Council to Combat Blindness. She also mentored many pre- and postdoctoral Penn students.
Dr. Botelho authored and coauthored 80 papers and abstracts in scientific journals and sat on scientific review panels for the National Science Foundation, the National Research Council and the National Institutes of Health. She was a member of the medical honor society Alpha Omega Alpha, the scientific honor society Sigma Xim, the American Academy of Neurology, the Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease, the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology and the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. She received the Alumnae Award of Merit from Penn in 1968.
Donations may be made in Dr. Botelho’s memory to the Philadelphia Zoo, where she served as a docent from 1981 until her death, at www.philadelphiazoo.org
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Ben Martin Jr., Veterinary Medicine
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Ben Martin, Jr. |
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Benson (Ben) Bennett Martin, Jr., associate professor emeritus of equine sports medicine at Penn Vet, died on March 18 after a long illness. He was 68 years old.
Dr. Martin was a pioneer in sports medicine and a specialist in equine surgery, working his 34-year veterinary career at New Bolton Center, the large animal hospital of the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine (Penn Vet).
Dr. Martin was born in Greenwich, Connecticut and graduated from Fairfield Prep, then served in the United States Navy in Vietnam. He graduated from the University of Connecticut, and in 1980, was awarded his VMD from Penn Vet. After completing an internship and a large animal surgery residency, Dr. Martin became board certified by the American College of Veterinary Surgeons.
During Dr. Martin’s 34-year career as a faculty member at New Bolton Center, he served as the director of the Jeffords High Speed Treadmill facility and the Equine Performance Clinic. He was an integral member of Penn Vet’s Admissions Committee for many years and mentored many veterinary students. He retired from the Penn Vet faculty in 2014.
Dr. Martin was the consummate horseman, having grown up in the horse business. He worked in Thoroughbred racing for his uncle, Hall of Fame trainer James W. Maloney, and later at Calumet Farm in Lexington, Kentucky, as well as in the show horse world. Dr. Martin traveled throughout the world, but chose the north shore of Kauai and Hanalei Bay as his second home.
Dr. Martin is survived by his brothers, Bruce and Robert Martin, and their wives, Debi and Sue; his sisters, Eve and Laurie; and his sister-in-law, Maria. He also leaves behind three nephews, Glenn, Robert, and Mark Miserocchi; a niece, Allyson Giordano; a godson, Edward van Eps; and his life partner, Ginny Reef, New Bolton Center chief of sports medicine and imaging.
Contributions can be made in Dr. Martin’s memory for student scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine. Please make checks payable to the “Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania” and mail to New Bolton Center Development Office, 382 West Street Road, Kennett Square, PA 19348.
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Albert Nijenhuis, Mathematics
Albert Nijenhuis, professor emeritus of mathematics at Penn, died on February 13 after a long illness in Seattle, Washington. He was 88 years old.
Dr. Nijenhuis was born in the Netherlands. After an interruption in his studies due to World War II, he received his PhD in mathematics from the University of Amsterdam in 1952. He came to the United States as a Fulbright Fellow at Princeton, then spent two years at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study. He was an instructor at the University of Chicago and an assistant professor and then professor of mathematics at the University of Washington in Seattle. From 1961 to 1962, he returned to the Institute for Advanced Study as a John Simon Guggenheim fellow (Almanac April 30, 1996). He was recruited to Penn’s faculty in 1963, then spent a year as a Fulbright professor at the University of Amsterdam before joining Penn as a professor of mathematics in 1964.
Dr. Nijenhuis’s original mathematical interest was in differential geometry, in which he made several significant contributions, particularly the Nijenhuis tensor and its applications to the theory of deformations. He later discovered an interest in combinatorial analysis and formed an influential and powerful team with his colleague, the late Herbert Wilf, with whom he published multiple books.
Dr. Nijenhuis was an invited speaker at the International Mathematical Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1958. He became a correspondent member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1966. In the fall of 1977, he researched and conducted a seminar in combinatorial mathematics as a visiting professor at Dartmouth College (Almanac October 25, 1977). In 2012, he was named to the inaugural class of fellows of the American Mathematical Society (Almanac December 18, 2012).
Dr. Nijenhuis took early retirement from Penn in 1987 and moved back to his beloved Pacific Northwest. In his later years, as an affiliate professor at the University of Washington, he rekindled his interest in differential geometry and presented a paper at age 70.
Dr. Nijenhuis is survived by his wife, Marianne; four daughters, Erika, Karin, Sabien and Alaine and their husbands; and six grandchildren. |
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