Richard “Buz” Cooper, a hematologist/oncologist, founder of Penn’s Cancer Center and senior fellow at Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute (LDI) of Health Economics, died in New York City on January 15 from complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 79 years old.

Dr. Cooper grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his medical degree from Washington University in St. Louis, then did an internship, residency and fellowship in hematology at what was then Harvard Medical Services of Boston City Hospital. In 1963, he held a fellowship at the National Cancer Institute and then became an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

In 1971, he joined the University of Pennsylvania. He founded Penn Medicine’s Cancer Center (later renamed the Abramson Cancer Center), which he directed from 1977-1985. He was a member of the Senate Advisory Committee (Almanac November 11, 1975) and the Senate Committee on Administrative Structure (Almanac January 17, 1978).

He was dean of the Medical College of Wisconsin from 1985-1994, then founded and directed the school’s Health Policy Institute, now the Institute for Health and Society, from 1994-2004.

In 2005, he returned to Penn as a senior fellow in the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. During this time, he challenged the Dartmouth Atlas view that the waste and inefficiencies of physicians and healthcare systems were responsible for the large geographical variation in healthcare costs in the US. Dr. Cooper contended that the variation stemmed from poverty, as large segments of the population are unable to obtain routine healthcare over a lifetime, resulting in massive numbers of advanced morbidities later in life that are expensive to treat.

At LDI, he also researched the question of whether or not the country would have enough future physicians, and advocated for a full scope of practice for advanced practice nurses.

In 2011, Dr. Cooper became director of the Center for the Future of the Healthcare Workforce at New York Institute of Technology. Shortly before his death, he completed a book on the effect of income inequality on poor healthcare outcomes and high healthcare spending. The book, titled Poverty and the Myths of Health Care Reform, is scheduled to be published this summer by Johns Hopkins University Press.

Dr. Cooper is survived by his wife, Barrie Cassileth; one daughter, Stephanie (David) Cooper Cornelius; one son, Jonathan (Eileen Harris); three grandchildren, Jordan, Matthew and Halle; and Andrea Pastor. A memorial event commemorating Dr. Cooper’s life and contributions is being planned for family, friends and colleagues at a future date. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Cooper Family Research Fund, care of the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center Development Office, 3535 Market Street, Ste. 750, Philadelphia, PA 19104.