David Thomas Rowlands, Jr., a Penn alumnus, former professor and chairman of the department of pathology at Penn, died on August 5. He was 86 years old.

Dr. Rowlands was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and raised in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and after three years of undergraduate studies was admitted into Penn’s School of Medicine. During his undergraduate years at Penn, he played intercollegiate soccer. Following medical school, his medical residency in pathology led him to Cincinnati, Ohio. Upon completion of his residency, he served in the Navy and was stationed in Key West, Florida. During this time, he was appointed as the chief casualty officer for the Bay of Pigs Invasion.

Following his time in the Navy, he worked on a team for the transplant of livers in humans in Denver, Colorado. In 1964, he joined Rockefeller University in New York City, where he was the number two in the laboratory group for the Nobel Prize winner in medicine research team. In the late 1960s, he was an associate professor at Duke University’s School of Medicine.

He joined Penn’s faculty as a professor in 1970 and succeeded Peter Nowell to lead the department of pathology as chairman from 1973 to 1978. He was interested in developmental immunology, cardiovascular pathobiology, organ transplantation and transplantation immunology.

In 1982, he accepted the chairmanship of pathology at the University of South Florida (USF). In 1991, he retired from USF, but found he missed teaching and joined the staff at the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine. While there, he authored a book entitled Golf Courses of the Caribbean.

Dr. Rowlands is survived by his wife, Gwendolyn York Rowlands; two daughters and four grandchildren. Burial at Florida National Cemetery with Military Honors will take place at a later date.