Biology Specialist Rashevsky Is Dead

Biology Specialist Rashevsky Is Dead

Dr. Nicholas Rashevsky, 72, world famous mathematical biologist and former University of Michigan professor, has died at his home in Holland, Mich. He formerly was U-M professor of mathematical biology and research mathematical biologist in the U-M Mental Health Research Institute.

Dr. Rashevsky, editor and publisher of the “Bulletin of Mathematical Biophysics” and president of Mathematical Biology Inc., left the U-M faculty in December 1969 to become consultant and research professor at the Ohio College of Medicine in Toledo.

He resigned from the Ohio college post on Jan. 1 of this year because of ill health, after establishing the first department of mathematical medicine in a U.S. medical school.

The former member of Russia’s White Guard who married a Russian princess and then fled with her to Turkey at the time of the revolution, first joined the U-M faculty in 1964. He lived at 1482 Bemidji Dr., before moving to Holland.

Prior to coming to Ann Arbor he had taught physics at his alma mater, the University of Kiev in Russia, then at Robert College in Constantinople, Turkey, before becoming professor of physics at Russian University in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Coming to the United States in 1924, he served first as a research physicist at the Westinghouse Research Laboratories, then as Rockefeller Fellow in mathematical biophysics at the University of Chicago, where he later served as professor of mathematical biology until coming to the U-M.

He served as director of the international post-doctoral course in physiomath aspects of biology, and was chairman of the first International Symposium on Mathematical Theories and Biological Phenomena. He was the author of a number of books and of numerous articles.

Born in Chernigov, Russia, on Sept. 20, 1899, a son of Peter and Nadezhda Konstantinovich Rashevsky, he and Princes Emily Zolotereva were married in 1919. She survives.

Also surviving are three daughters, Mrs. K. (Emilie) Stand, Mrs. C. O. (Nina) Carlson, and Mrs. M. S. (Nadezhda) Pittman Jr., all of California.