Obituaries

Charles Ward Parker, MD, a Washington University faculty member whose pioneering research helped improve treatment of allergies and asthma, died Tuesday, April 23, 2013, from pancreatic cancer at his home in Webster Groves. He was 83.

Rabbi James S. Diamond, former executive director of Hillel at Washington University in St. Louis, died March 28, 2013, in a traffic accident in Princeton, N.J., where he lived. He was 74.

Ira C. Gall, MD, professor emeritus of clinical obstetrics and gynecology and a strong supporter of Washington University School of Medicine, died Friday, March 29, 2013, from complications of pancreatic cancer.

Marilyn Krukowski, PhD, professor emerita of biology, died Sunday, April 7, 2013, in St. Louis from complications of multiple sclerosis. She was 80. Krukowski taught vertebrate structure (anatomy) in the Department of Biology for more than 30 years. Her students raved about the quality of her teaching and often cited the course as the best they ever had taken at Washington University.

Frederick Sweet, PhD, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, died Thursday, March 7, 2013, following a stroke. He was 74.

Carl Rovainen, PhD, professor emeritus of cell biology and physiology, died of cancer March 1, 2013, in Brookings, Ore. Rovainen retired from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis in 2001, after 34 years as a faculty member.

Marvin Jay Cummins, PhD, a longtime member of the Washington University Arts & Sciences faculty in sociology and political science, died Friday, March 1, 2013. He was 77.​

Renowned author and art historian Udo Kultermann, who taught architecture at WUSTL for nearly 30 years, died Feb. 9, 2013, in New York City, following a long illness. He was 85.

Islamic art specialist Melanie Michailidis, PhD, the Korff Postdoctoral Fellow in Islamic Art at Washington University in St. Louis, was killed Friday, Feb. 1, 2013, in an automobile accident in Ladue, Mo. She was 46. Michailidis was in the second year of a three-year joint fellowship she held in the university’s Department of Art History and Archaeology and at the Saint Louis Art Museum. ​

Todd H. Wasserman, MD, professor emeritus of radiation oncology at the School of Medicine, died Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013, after a long illness. Wasserman, 66, made important contributions to the field of radiation oncology.