Edward Kravitz
From the Boston Globe:
KRAVITZ, Edward, A Renowned Professor of Neurobiology The George Packer Berry Professor of Neurobiology, Emeritus, at Harvard Medical School, died at home, on September 21, 2025. He was 92 years old. Ed was a pioneering neuroscientist and an inspiration to generations of researchers. He joined the Harvard faculty in 1960, and was a founding member of the world's first Department of Neurobiology in 1966. Prior to his retirement at age 91, he and other members of the Kravitz lab published more than 100 papers in top-tier journals.
Throughout his career, Ed made foundational contributions to our understanding of the brain. In the early 1960s, when many thought that transmission within the nervous system was electrical, Ed and his colleagues were the first to show that GABA functions as an inhibitory neurotransmitter, a discovery that reshaped modern neuroscience. He is also widely recognized for his innovative studies on neuronal architecture and the neurobiology of behavior. He and his colleagues developed techniques for visualizing neuronal structures using intracellular dyes, opening new paths for anatomical studies of the nervous system. His research extended to the roles of serotonin and octopamine in behavior. Ed first used lobsters as a model organism to explore the neurobiology of aggression; at age 70, he switched to fruit flies, where genetic methods allowed him to gain valuable information about complex behaviors. Ed's work set new standards in neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, and behavioral neuroscience. Ed was also a groundbreaking educator. He was the first director of the Program in Neuroscience at Harvard University. He co-founded the Neurobiology of Disease Teaching Workshops at the Society for Neuroscience, which later evolved into the Neurobiology of Disease course at Harvard that he taught for nearly forty years.
Ed was deeply committed to inclusive education. In 1968, he and eight other faculty members formed an ad hoc committee to advocate for increased inclusion of racially and ethnically diverse applicants to Harvard Medical School. Their recommendations were accepted by the faculty, resulting in significant growth in enrollments by students from underrepresented populations. Among his many awards and honors, Ed was especially proud of his Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award from Harvard Medical School, and the Education Award from the Association of Neuroscience Departments and Programs. Ed had a longtime association with the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, serving variously as the Director of the Neurobiology course, a founder of the Summer Program in Neuroscience, Excellence and Success (SPINES), and a member of the board of trustees. The MBL presents an annual lecture in his name, and Ed himself gave two lectures there as recently as last June. Ed was a member of many professional societies, including the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Huntington's Disease Foundation (previously the Hereditary Disease Foundation).
Ed was well known among his colleagues and friends for his exuberant humor: most notably for his highly-demanded hallmark rendition of "The Suit Joke." He loved music of all sorts, especially if it was produced in the family. Ed recounted his early life and scientific career in his memoir, Lobsters and Fruit Flies and Me, Oh My! A Memoir. He was born in the Bronx, New York to Isadore and Ada (Machlus) Kravitz, on December 19, 1932. He had one older brother, Bill (1930-2014). He is a graduate of City College of New York and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan; he later completed post-doctoral studies at the National Institutes of Health. While at Michigan, he met Kathryn Frakes, and they married in 1958. He is survived by Kathryn; their two sons, David (Shannon Rose McAuliffe) and James (Jeffrey Kubis); and a granddaughter, Theodora McAuliffe-Kravitz.
Read more about Maguire’s distinguished career in the Boston Globe.
