OUR DNA Fall--2022

Fond Farewells

Norman Curtiss Negus

(1926–2022)

SBS Emeritus professor, Norm Negus’s lifelong love of animals and the outdoors led him into a very successful professional career of teaching and research at both Tulane University and the University of Utah. He took immense pleasure and pride in guiding students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. His research with animals and the environment allowed him to be in the outdoors that was his passion. When he was not trapping animals or collecting plants he could be found with his dogs fly fishing, hiking and hunting in the Rocky Mountains that he loved. He passed away just two weeks before his 96th birthday.

Remembered as a remarkable man who had a wonderful life, he served his country in World War II in the Army Air Corp. After the war he completed his undergraduate and Master’s Degree in Zoology from Miami University in 1950, and a PhD in Biology from The Ohio State University in 1956. He taught biology at Tulane from 1950 to 1970. In that year he accepted a position as Professor of Biology at the University of Utah where he worked until his retirement in 1995.

A father of four children, he later married Patricia Jane (aka Pat Berger) in 1973, a biologist in her own right (and, currently, SBS faculty emerita). Together they pursued joint careers of teaching and research at the U.

Robert Vickery

(1922–2022)

Emeritus Faculty Dr. Robert Kingston Vickery Jr passed away eight weeks before his 100th birthday. “Bob was an internationally recognized Plant Geneticist and Chair of the Department of Genetics, one of the traditional Departments at Utah that were merged to form the Biology Department,” says friend and colleague Baldomero “Toto” Olivera. “He was responsible for recruiting [the late] Gordon Lark to Utah as Chair of the new Biology Department; as a senior member of the merged Department, he played a key role in establishing the creative and collaborative interactions between the disparate disciplines of Biology.”

In a tribute during this year’s SBS Science Retreat, plant biologist and colleague of Vickery’s Lynn Bohs spoke fondly of her association and of Vickery’s signature garb of shorts and a cheery yellow shirt that he wore in the field and in the greenhouse atop South Biology building. A great lover of plants, Vickery attended first grade in a Montessori school in Rome, Italy where he skipped the reading lessons, preferring to learn how to grow plants in a planter box. He graduated from high school in Berkeley California and attended Stanford University before and he served in the Army Air Corps during WWII. While there he witnessed the famous raising of the Stars and Stripes over Mount Suribachi.

Presented with a Distinguished Teaching Award in 1972, Vickery’s research model was the monkey flower (mimulus). He also loved to teach. For many years he led trips of students and high school science teachers to the Galapagos Islands to learn in the environment that inspired Charles Darwin.

George R. Riser

(1923–2022)

In 2017 George R. Riser BS’47, received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the School of Biological Sciences. It was an auspicious award for a truly auspicious man in part because of Riser’s sustained funding of the Riser Endowed Scholarship Fund which has provided annual scholarships to thousands of graduate and undergraduate students in biology along with travel awards for field research.

Following his graduation from the University of Utah, Riser went on to New York City to study voice with Enzo Serrafini and at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music. Later, returning to his science background, he became a physical chemist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture where he worked for 23 years. He passed away at age 98 in Huntingdon Valley, PA.

Ellen Louise Radike

(1954–2022)

She worked at several different labs and scientific companies but, in part because of her love mountains, settled in at the University of Utah where she ran the biology teaching labs. Remembered by many on campus as the woman with the black Great Dane Maia by her side, she was also, according to former Co-Director Leslie Sieburth, a caring mentor to biology undergraduates, many of whom went on to graduate school and careers in science. She is survived by her son Jesse, five siblings and many nieces and nephews.

A former SBS teaching lab coordinator, Ellen Radike passed away July 22. A graduate of Mount Notre Dame High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, she received her medical technology degree from the University of Cincinnati. In the 70s she worked in the Grand Teton National Park in the 1970’s and fell in love with the mountains.

Donating in Memory of a Faculty or Staff Member

Remembrances of recently-deceased faculty members were given at the Science Retreat & Lark Lecture on October 6th. The new graduate student cohort was welcomed with a variety of research presentations from faculty, post-docs and graduates. The Lecture was presented by Ron Davis (Stanford University), followed by a reception and display of research posters by both undergraduate and graduate students.

This is the first year for the Lecture since its namesake, K. Gordon Lark, passed away in 2020. SBS’s current campaign to fully endow the Lark Endowed Professorship continues with a $1:$1 match.

You can donate to the Endowment or any other established fund in memory of any individual which will be acknowledged in OUR DNA.

You can read expanded remembrances at biology.utah.edu