Dr. Shipley was the Donald E. Wilson, MD, MACP Distinguished Professor, preeminent Neuroscientist, longtime Chair of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, and Founding Director of the UMSOM Program in Neuroscience. Dr. Shipley joined the UMSOM faculty as Chair in 1994. He was one of the world’s leading experts on the neural organization of the region of the brain, called the olfactory bulb, that processes information about odors.

 

Masakazu (Mark) Konishi, the Bing Professor of Behavioral Biology, Emeritus, passed away on July 23. He was 87 years old. Renowned for his work on the neuroscience underlying the behavior of owls and songbirds, Konishi joined the Caltech faculty as a professor of biology in 1975, becoming the Bing Professor of Behavioral Biology in 1980.

Over the span of his career, Dr. Townsel's distinguished performance in the field yielded many awards and acknowledgements including the induction as a Fellow into the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and receiving a Distinguished Alumni Award in Biology in 1999 from the School of Science from Purdue University. He contributed to over 90 publications, and directly trained and nurtured 15 postdoctoral associates.

Famed pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. James T. Goodrich, who separated conjoined twins, died March 30. Einstein College of Medicine in New York City attributed his death to complications associated with COVID-19. He was 73.

It saddens us to announce the death of John “Jerry” I. Simpson (80), Professor Emeritus at the Department of Neuroscience and Physiology, NYU Langone Health in New York. He passed away quietly on March 22 after having been continually hospitalized for 3 months. Jerry was well known in the cerebellar community for his intellect, his encyclopedic knowledge, his outgoing personality and wit, his entertaining lectures sprinkled with humor, and his thought-provoking questions.