Mitch Glickstein
Neuroscientist who pioneered a university research programme on brain activity
HIS RECENT book, Neuroscience, which introduces the subject from a historical perspective, may have been the culmination of a long and distinguished career in his scientific field, but Professor Mitchell Glickstein, who has died aged 85, had also been a member of the American Merchant Navy, a keen Hebraist and – until his dying day – a great teller of Jewish jokes.
Mitch was born in Boston to Iszo and Ida Glickstein. His father was an immigrant from the Ukraine via Hungary — a renowned cantor at Temple Mishkin Tefilah. Mitch revered the musical legacy of his father, and the memory of both his parents, throughout his life.
He graduated from the University of Chicago. He loved living in that city, and studying in that great institution known for its academic rigour, diverse student body and lively political culture at a time when McCarthyism was in full swing. Following graduation in 1951, he set off around the world using commercial ships to visit England, France, Italy, Greece, Israel, Ceylon, Singapore, Korea and Japan before returning to the USA. A few years later he began his postgraduate studies in psychology at the University of Chicago. He followed future Nobel laureate Roger Sperry, the neuropsychologist authority on split brain research, to the California Institute of Technology as a Research Fellow upon receiving his PhD in 1958. He found Cal Tech a lively place and Sperry’s lab a fertile ground for neuroscience. He subsequently moved to Stanford in 1960-1961.
Armed with a wealth of experience from his extensive collaborations with renowned teachers and researchers, Mitch decided to seek a “proper job,” as he called it, and opted for a position of Assistant Professor in Physiology and Psychology at the University of Seattle.
He moved to Brown University in Providence in 1967. A few years after joining Brown, he travelled to Oxford to begin collaboration with the Professor of Physiology, David Whitteridge, and other eminent neuroscientists. During one of his trips to Oxford, he met Lydia Sinclair, a solicitor working in mental health law, whom he married. They had two children — Benjamin and Hannah. Lydia joined him in Providence for a while, but her work took her back to England where they eventually settled.
The spring of 1980 was the start of Mitch’s tenure at University College, London. He worked tirelessly and offered a great deal to the collegiate life of UCL. Upon joining the university, it was business as usual for Mitch. He quickly established his research programme on the role of the brain in sensory guidance of movement, and in particular the structure and function of the pathways that link the cerebral cortex, especially the visual areas, to the cerebellum.
Mitch will be remembered for starting the popular neuroscience degree programme at UCL, followed by very successful MSc and PhD degree courses in subsequent years.
He loved teaching. All his students appreciated his style which was distinguished by his well-rounded knowledge, infectious enthusiasm, historical and anecdotal background, and facts that were based on solid experimental evidence. He remained dedicated to teaching until earlier this term.
During later life Mitch returned to his childhood interest in studying Hebrew. For the past nine years, he met with a close friend and Catholic scholar every Friday to translate the Hebrew Bible and reflect on its meaning, historical context and language.
His wife Lydia sadly predeceased him in 1998 and was deeply missed by Mitch for the rest of his days. He died peacefully at home in Camden Town in the company of his two children, who survive him along with his four grandchildren, who remember him for reading them as many stories as they wanted, letting them feed the squirrels in his garden on peanut butter and serving huge quantities of waffles with syrup and blackcurrant jam.
JOHN G PARNAVELAS, EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF NEUROANATOMY, AND HANNAH GLICKSTEIN
Mitch Glickstein: born July 13, 1931. Died March 14, 2017