Norma Ornstein Goldstein, a cell biologist who held a number of positions at Penn, died April 12. She was 96.

Dr. Goldstein received her undergraduate degree from NYU, her master’s from Columbia, and her PhD in molecluar biology from Penn.

She held positions at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory (now Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), the University of California at Berkeley department of zoology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and multiple research laboratories at Penn, where she worked for the last several decades of her career, studying animal and human gene sequencing to illuminate their relationship to aging and pathology of human heart, lung and skin diseases.

Before earning her PhD in 1971, she worked as a research associate in Penn’s vet animal biology department. In 1971, she became a post-doctoral fellow in animal biology, and then held research and adjunct assistant professor positions in the same department. In 1979, Dr. Goldstein became a research assistant professor of biochemistry, vet medicine, and then a few years later a research specialist in molecular biology in dental medicine. Before leaving the University in 1989, she also served as a research associate in histology in dental medicine.

Dr. Goldstein is survived by her sister-in-law, Theresa Roller Ornstein; nieces and nephews, Avi Ornstein and Bernice Nowak-Ornstein, Tad and Lyanne Ornstein, and Cindy Ornstein and Charles Johnson.