Robert B. Livingston of the neurosciences department at the UCSD School of Medicine died April 26 at UCSD’s Thornton Hospital following a period of deteriorating health. He was 83.
A public memorial is planned for Livingston and will take place at UCSD.
Livingston was an important member of the UCSD community, scientifically and socially.
Livingston was born in Boston on Oct. 19, 1918. He served in the Naval Reserves during World War II and was stationed as a physician in Okinawa when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Following his experience in the war, Livingston worked in nuclear disarmament.
Active in social organizations and peace movements, Livingston had been a member of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
“”He worked hard for the position of social responsibility,”” said friend and colleague Theodore Bullock, professor emeritus of neurosciences at UCSD.
Livingston also had an interest in philosophy and religion, which led him to become a friend and scientific advisor to the Dalai Lama following a colloquium on Buddhist thought and Western science.
UCSD recruited Livingston in 1966, as he was respected by its founders for his imaginative and groundbreaking work. He was given a vision of the university by Roger Revelle, who played a key role in persuading Livingston to join the UCSD faculty.
Livingston helped found UCSD’s department of neurosciences, serving as chairman until 1970. Livingston then served as a professor until 1989.
During his career at UCSD, Livingston made great strides in the development of the scientific community. He came to San Diego after 10 years of work at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Md., where he had served as the director of research in both the National Institute for Mental Health and the National Institute for Neurological Diseases and Blindness.
One of Livingston’s most recognized projects is the slicing and photographing of the human brain. The images were digitalized to movie frames and have played an important role in the study of the dynamic brain.
The award-winning project earned Livingston’s laboratory a significant grant to continue mapping the human brain in three dimensions.