Carole Marcus, a pioneering sleep researcher, professor at CHOP and associate director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Translational Research, died on November 19. She was 57.

After she earned her medical degree, a MBBCh,  from University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa in 1982, she completed a residency at SUNY Brooklyn.

She worked at Johns Hopkins University from 1991-2003 in the pediatrics faculty and as medical director of the Pediatric Sleep Laboratory and then Pediatric Sleep Center before joining CHOP and Penn Medicine in 2003. 

At the time of her death she was professor of pediatrics at CHOP and at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; director of the Sleep Center at CHOP; co-director of the Clinical and Translational Science Award at Penn; pediatric associate director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics; and the R. Anderson Pew Distinguished Chair in Pediatrics at CHOP. In 2015, she received the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Mentor Award. 

Dr. Marcus studied the pathophysiology of childhood obstructive sleep apnea, developmental aspects of ventilatory and upper airway control, upper airway collapsibility and arousal mechanisms during sleep and sleep-disordered breathing. She was the first author of a large, randomized multicenter study on OSAS published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2013. 

According to a notice from CHOP, Dr. Marcus “held virtually every leadership position in pediatric sleep medicine at some point in her abbreviated career and received numerous awards, including the William C. Dement Academic Achievement Award in Sleep Medicine.”

She is survived by her brothers, Neil (Miriam) and Anthony. 

Contributions in her memory may be made to Doctors Without Borders, PO Box 5030, Hagerstown, MD 21741-5030.

A memorial service for Dr. Marcus will be held at CHOP in January.