JB Say What?

I’ve been fortunate enough to have a number of excellent mentors in my life. Today I want to talk about one of them: my graduate school advisor, Victor H. Denenberg, who passed away this weekend at the age of 83.

I first met Vic when I was in the process of applying to graduate schools. I was given the advice to apply to your home state school, and so I got ahold of the UCONN graduate school catalogue and started looking at the research interests of the faculty. At the time, there really wasn’t a field called “Neuroscience,” but I knew that I wanted a program that would combine the study of behavior with biology. I was also convinced that I would continue doing research on circadian rhythms as I had during the previous couple of years. Either I was a lot dumber that I remember, or I simply misread something, but I got the impression that this Denenberg fellow might be worth talking to.

So I wrote him a letter and arranged to come and visit the lab for an afternoon. I explained my goals for my graduate career and he patiently listened. He never out and out and said that I couldn’t do circadian rhythm research, so I took that as a positive sign. I met with the graduate students—some of whom were civil to me—and came away with a generally positive impression. When the time came to consider where I would matriculate, Denenberg’s lab seemed to be the place to be.

It didn’t take long me for me to become immersed in the research of the lab. In fact, the very first week, Vic himself taught me how to “handle” rat pups—a procedure whereby you individually isolate newborn rat pups from their mothers for 3 minutes daily. I didn’t realize it then, but that may have been the last time he actually worked with the rats. Our laboratory was a rather large unit that required strong collaborations among the graduate students, and Vic did a masterful job of managing everyone’s contributions and expectations. He was sometimes difficult and could be quite stern, but he was always fair.

From Vic I learned how to properly design experiments, how to properly review a manuscript, how to write a grant proposal, and the proper use of statistics. To call him a statistical savant isn’t quite fair because it implies that he knew nothing else, which is far from the truth. That said, his statistical mind was the most exceptional I have ever run across. I would never hesitate to contact him with questions concerning my analyses. Just last year we shared a long email discussion about a particularly tricky by of data, the analysis of which required his insight.

I once asked him how he got interested in statistics. He said “World War II.” He was an 19-year-old infantryman in France when he was shot in the thigh while climbing over a fence. Had he started his climb just half-a-second earlier he would have been hit in the head. The randomness of that act touched a place deep within him, and he was determined to find out more about putting order in randomness, which is what statistical analysis does.

As generous as Vic was with his time for his students, he could sometimes be less so when it came to money. He would often join us for drinks at the end of the week, and would never treat, and sometimes didn’t leave enough money to cover his own cocktail. About 10 years ago or so, a number of us were invited by Vic to go out for drinks at Trader Vic’s in DC. When the bill came, Vic made noises about how to split the bill. By prearrangment, none of us reached for our wallets. I said “Dig deep, Vic.” To his credit, he just smiled and whipped out his credit card.

I’ve gone on a little too long for a blog entry, and I didn’t even get to the famous Jello Party, so I’ll save that for another post sometime. For those of you that knew Vic, there are some nice remembrances being gathered by Holly Fitch at her lab site. For those of you who didn’t know Vic, just know that he was a brilliant scientist and exceptional teacher and mentor.

Posted by Glenn on Monday, July 21st, 2008 at 9:45 pm.