Edward M. Stricker, former University Professor of Neuroscience who started, chaired and built the department in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences — one of the first such undergraduate departments in the country — died Aug. 22, 2024, at 83.
Stephen D. Meriney, current department chair and co-director of the University’s Center for Neuroscience (of which Stricker was co-director, 1996 to 2002), was hired in 1993 under Stricker. “He was essentially the father of the department,” recalls Meriney, “and in many respects a good steward of the department, and really was for us the kind of leader and example-setter we needed in a young department.”
In teaching neuroscience to undergraduate students, “he saw that as a vision for the future and he was right,” Meriney says. Since then, “there’s been an explosion of undergraduate neuroscience studies in the country.”
Stricker’s focus in those early years was on finding like-minded, collegial individuals, says Meriney, “faculty members who interacted well with each other, no matter how broad the department. It is a community we have here. … That is something he instilled from the beginning, that we still instill today.”
Stricker held annual state-of-the-department addresses and meetings: “He had a vision and he demonstrated that vision in the way he tracked what we did and the department did.
“He was someone who was very impactful as a teacher,” Meriney adds. “He used a problem-based approach to teaching,” exposing students to research and real-world problems that showed the mechanisms of neuroscience at a molecular level.
Stricker’s own research focused on homeostasis as it relates to how humans control thirst and salt intake, at both a biological and a psychological level, reflecting his department’s origins in psychobiology at Pitt.
“He was someone that I looked up to as a model of how I wanted to be as a professor, and how you conduct yourself as an academic scientist,” Meriney says.
Edward Michael Stricker was born on May 22, 1941, in the Bronx, New York. He earned his bachelor of science and master of science degrees in chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1960 and 1961, respectively, and a Ph.D. in psychology from Yale in 1965.
He began his academic career on the faculty of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario (1967-1971), joining Pitt in 1971 as an associate professor of psychology and biological sciences. He was named a full professor in 1976 and a decade later became Distinguished University Professor of Neuroscience.
During his 49-year tenure at Pitt, he was director of the psychobiology department (1983-1986), founding chair of the neuroscience department (1986-2002), founding director of the Conti Center for Neuroscience of Mental Disorders (1990-1995) and co-director of the Center for Neuroscience (1996-2002).
He taught introductory and graduate courses in neuroscience, as well as interdisciplinary honors courses, earning a 1992 Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award and the 2001 Tina & David Bellet Teaching Excellence Award.
Stricker also received the Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health (1981-1986) and the Distinguished Career Award from the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior (2015), an international organization of scientists who study the biological bases of food and fluid intake.
In his laboratory across 41 years (1967-2008), he received continuous funding from Canadian and U.S. federal agencies. He helped to formulate, and published widely on, a popular model of recovery of function following brain damage that relates closely to Parkinson’s disease. He published more than 250 research articles, reviews and book chapters, earning the MERIT Award from the National Institute of Mental Health. He also was elected president of the International Congress on the Physiology of Food and Fluid Ingestion (1987-91, 1991-94) and of the Association of Neuroscience Departments and Programs (2000-01), and served on the editorial boards of several journals in his field.
He was editor of the Handbook of Behavioral Neurobiology’s volume 10 on food and fluid intake (1990) and co-editor of Advances in Neuroscience and Schizophrenia (1992) and other works.
Stricker also served Pitt as dean of the University Honors College (2011-2017), and was a visiting professor of psychiatry at the medical schools of Johns Hopkins and Cornell universities. He retired from the University in 2020.
“He was the ideal colleague,” remembers Alan Sved, a frequent collaborator with Stricker on published papers and now professor emeritus in neuroscience. “He was in many ways the role model of an academic researcher, outstanding in both the research dimension and the education dimensions.” His teaching and research “were totally integrated, as the ideal model should be.
“Ed recruited me to Pittsburgh — I would never have been in Pittsburgh if it wasn’t for Ed,” Sved says. During these initial meetings, “he asked me if I was a researcher or an educator. The question was kind of foreign to me. I consider myself a researcher. He counseled me that I really was an educator at least as much as I was a researcher — or at least that’s what I should strive to be.”
It is astounding to think, he adds, “just how wonderful a colleague he was, just how important his role at the university was, and just how much in awe I was of all he had accomplished.”
Stricker is survived by his second wife of nearly 16 years, Myriam, and her children Alyssa and Nicole, and their spouses. He also is survived by his former wife of 42 years, Marcy Bloom, and their children Judd and Emily, and their spouses; his siblings George and Carol, and their spouses; and one grandson.
A memorial service will be held on Oct. 6, 2024, at Burket-Truby Funeral Home, 421 Allegheny Ave., Oakmont. Visitation begins at 1 p.m., followed by select eulogies from 2 to 3 p.m. There will be a live stream of the eulogies available for those who would like to attend virtually.
Memorial gifts are suggested to the Edward Stricker Undergraduate Neuroscience Excellence Award fund, or to your local library.
— Marty Levine