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Obituaries
Memorial services have been scheduled for longtime UB faculty members James F. Mohn and Michael Gort, both of whom died recently.
The service for Mohn, professor emeritus of microbiology, will be held at 11 a.m. Nov. 22 in Elma United Methodist Church, 2991 Bowen Road, Elma.
The service for Gort, professor in the Department of Economics, College of Arts and Sciences, will be at 11 a. m. Nov. 23 in the Center for the Arts, North Campus.
Mohn, a UB faculty member for more than 45 years and longtime director of the university’s Ernest Witebsky Center for Immunology, died Nov. 9 in his Orchard Park home after a lengthy illness. He was 86.
A graduate of the UB medical school, Mohn joined the medical school faculty in 1945 as an instructor of bacteriology and immunology, interrupting his career to serve as a captain in the U.S. Army at Walter Reed Medical Center during the Korean War.
At the time of his retirement from UB in 1991, he was a professor of microbiology and served as director of the Ernest Witebsky Center for Immunology for nearly 20 years.
An expert in blood group research, he received several prestigious awards for his work in hematology and blood transfusion. He helped develop the first cell-washing centrifuge and was appointed by the governor of New York State as an adviser on AIDS education. He was a co-founder of the International Society of Hematology.
A 47-year volunteer director in the American Red Cross, he was a recipient of the Greater Buffalo Chapter's Clara Barton Volunteer of the Year Award and in 1995, received the Charles R. Drew Award from the national American Red Cross.
Memorials in Mohn's name may be made to the Parkinson's Research Foundation, P.O. Box 20256, Sarasota, Fla., 34276, or to the Marilla Fire Co., P.O. Box 124, Marilla, N.Y., 14102.
Gort, who planned to retire at the end of the semester after 45 years on the faculty, died Nov. 11 in University of Miami Hospital, Miami, Fla., after a brief illness. He was 85.
Born in the Soviet Union, Gort was 3 years old when his parents fled to China. As a young man, he came to the United States and earned his master’s degree and doctorate from Columbia University in 1954.
He taught at the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Chicago and Northwestern University prior to coming to UB in 1963.
His research and publications focused on the economics of innovation, the measurement of technical change and the economics of regulation.
The Society of Economic Dynamics dedicated a special issue of the Review of Economic Dynamics to Gort in recognition of his contributions in economics.
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