Allen Broderick Edmundson Jr. ’54

Allen Broderick Edmundson Jr. ’54 passed away on December 5, 2020, in Edmond, Oklahoma. Allen came to Dartmouth from Miami Jackson High School in Springfield, Illinois. He graduated as a Phi Beta Kappa and then went on to Dartmouth Medical School. From 1955 until 1961 he was a doctoral student in protein chemistry, studying under two Nobel laureates at Rockefeller University, where he attained his Ph.D. in biochemistry. He became a postdoctoral fellow of the U.S. Public Health Service in medical research. From 1964 to 1976 he was a senior scientist at the Argonne National Laboratory and then a professor in the fields of biology, biochemistry, and microbiology at the University of Utah. In 1990 he became chair of macromolecular crystallography at the Harrington Cancer Center. In 1994 he became the head of crystallography at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, from which he retired in 2004. He published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals and received a number of awards, including the National Cancer Institute Merit Award and the International Biographical Center Lifetime Achievement Award. In a tribute to his life in the Journal of Molecular Recognition he was quoted as saying, “There are few in this life or the next who cherish friends, colleagues, post-docs, and students more than I do.” He is survived by his wife, Shelagh, and daughters Kathryn and Carole. He was predeceased by son Douglas.