Passing of Professor Emeritus Stuart Krassner

I am sad to announce the passing of Stuart Krassner, professor emeritus of developmental and cell biology and a founding member of our faculty whose distinguished research helped establish this university’s national and international reputation.

Professor Krassner earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Brooklyn College, a Sc.D. in parasitology from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University and a Psy.D. from the American Behavioral Studies Institute. After serving as a research fellow at the Rockefeller Institute, he joined UCI as one of our first 100 faculty hires.

During his 40 years on the UCI faculty, Professor Krassner studied disease-causing hemoflagellates and sought to understand how primitive parasitic protozoa transform within each host. His global work in infectious diseases took him to India, Brazil and Switzerland for extended periods, and he lectured at both U.S. and international academic institutions, including Harvard Medical School, Rockefeller University, Johns Hopkins University, St. Petersburg University and the University of Edinburgh, among others. He taught courses on parasitology to generations of UCI students. He also held a joint appointment in the School of Medicine, where he taught medical parasitology and served on the Medical School Admissions Committee. He was a member of the American Academy for the Advancement of Sciences and the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, among others.

Professor Krassner was instrumental in developing the original FDA and NIH compliance procedures for UCI-sponsored human clinical trials, organized UCI’s first Institutional Review Board, and was the campus officer responsible for all UCI-related contract and grant activities from 1985 to 1990. He also served in departmental and school leadership positions, including a term as acting dean of the School of Biological Sciences in the mid-1980s.

Following his retirement in 2005, Professor Krassner was active with the UCI Emeriti Association and worked as a consultant for numerous public and private organizations until 2019.

Professor Emeritus Stuart Krassner is survived by his wife, Liza, assistant director of facilities and academic programs in the Program in Public Health, and three sons, David, Mark, and Joseph. The School of Biological Sciences will hold a celebration of his life later this academic year.

Chancellor Howard Gillman