Letter to the Editor
Personal Reminiscences of Robert Emerson and Eugene Rabinowitch

By : Govindjee Govindjee , Rajni Govindjee

Page No: 101-106

Abstract
We present a glimpse into the lives of two great scientists, our professors who guided us during our PhD days (1956-1961): Robert Emerson (1903- 1959) and Eugene I. Rabinowitch (1901-1973). We have divided these reminiscences into two periods: (1) September 1956—February 1959, during which, one of us (Govindjee) was a graduate student of Robert Emerson in “Physico-Chemical Biology”, from 1956, whereas the other (Rajni) was in Botany, from 1957. During this time, Eugene Rabinowitch was a professor next door, but working in the same “Photosynthesis Project”; and (2) March 1959— onwards, when both of us were under Rabinowitch following Emerson’s death in a plane crash on February 4, 1959. After completing PhD (in Biophysics) under Rabinowitch in September 1960, Govindjee worked as a NIH Postdoctoral Fellow until he was appointed as an Assistant Professor in Botany in September 1961. After that, Govindjee and Rabinowitch were faculty colleagues until the latter left Urbana to go to Albany, New York in 1968. Meanwhile, Rajni finished her PhD in Botany in May 1961, and later did extensive research, as a NIH Postdoctoral Fellow and then as a Research Associate under Rabinowitch for many years.

Authors :
Govindjee Govindjee and Rajni Govindjee
Department of Plant Biology, Department of Biochemistry, and Center of Biophysics & Quantitative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA.
 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.32381/JPSR.2021.37.1.13