Archives
Obituaries
Harold Brody, medical school faculty member
A memorial service was held yesterday in Slee Hall, North Campus, for Harold Brody, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus and a faculty member in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences for more than 40 years. Brody died Friday in Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital. He was 85.
A native of Cleveland, Brody graduated from high school at age 16, attended Long Island University for two years, then enlisted in the Army during World War II. His passion for medicine began when he was sent as a medic to England and assigned to a special program to assist in surgery.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Western Reserve University, a doctorate in anatomy from the University of Minnesota and a medical degree, with honors, from UB.
Prior to joining the UB faculty in 1954, Brody was an instructor at the University of Minnesota and an assistant professor at the University of North Dakota.
He served as chair of the anatomy department at UB from 1971-92. He retired in 1995.
Brody’s research in neuroscience and gerontology is credited with promoting a better understanding of the aging processes of the human brain.
He founded and served as curator of UB’s Museum of Neuroanatomy, which is housed in the Department of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences. It is the only museum in the U. S. devoted exclusively to the brain. He also founded the university’s anatomical gift program.
He was a Fulbright senior research scholar at Kommune Hospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1963 and returned several times as a distinguished visiting professor at the hospital and the University of Copenhagen. He also was a visiting professor at numerous colleges and hospitals in the U. S. and Canada.
Brody was a member of the American Association of Anatomists, a past president and fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, a fellow of the American Geriatrics Society and a past president of the Buffalo Neuropsychiatric Society and the Roswell Park Medical Club.
He was an ad hoc adviser to the 1981 White House Conference on Aging and a member of numerous local advisory committees on aging.
He published extensively on topics related to aging and the brain, and served on many editorial boards and as a consultant for professional journals and publishers.
He also held a variety of administrative posts while at UB, including as associate director of the Project for Medical Education from 1956-60, acting assistant dean for student affairs from 1967-69, associate dean for student affairs in 1969-70 and acting director of the Multidisciplinary Center for the Study of Aging from 1977-80.
In addition, he was active in university governance, serving on the Faculty Senate Executive Committee at UB and on the SUNY-wide Faculty Senate, where he served two terms on its Executive Committee. He also was a member of numerous UB committees, including the Clifford Furnas Scholarship-Athletic Fellowship Committee, the Distinguished Service Professor Selection Committee and, from 1970-73, the President’s Advisory Board for Faculty Appointments, Promotion and Tenure. He was co-chair of the medical school’s sesquicentennial planning committee.
He received the medical school’s Dean’s Award in 1999 and UB’s Distinguished Medical Alumnus Award in 1995. The medical school yearbook was dedicated to him in 1984, and he was commended by the Class of 1993 for outstanding teaching. The Gerontological Society of America presented him a research award in 1978, and the Amherst Senior Citizens Center gave him its Brotherhood Award in 1980.