William Shigeru Yamamoto, MD

Background Born September 22, 1924, Cleveland OH Died March 6, 2009, Bowie MD Education – B.A. (Chemistry) Park College (MO), 1945 – M.D. University of Pennsylvania, 1949 – Master of Science (Hon.) University of Pennsylvania, 1971 US Army medical officer stationed in Europe (1950 – 1955). Faculty appointments: – Prof. of physiology, Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1955 – 1971 – Visiting professor, UCLA, – Prof. of Computer Medicine, George Washington University 1971 – 1998; chair 1971 – Retired from GWU, 1998.

Highlights Entire family forcibly interned outside Los Angeles under executive order 9066 in 1942 – “reprieve” through Park College work study program. Pioneering biocomputing research for 45 years: – Models of mammalian respiratory control systems (Yamamoto and Brobeck, 1965). – Studies of semantics of verbs and database representations of physiological models. – Model of anatomy and function of nervous system of C. elegans. (Achacoso and Yamamoto, 1991) Gifted teacher of physiology and medicine, biomathematics, biomedical engineering, statistics, and computation. Early promoter of computer training for medical students and use of clinical and academic administrative systems. Director of Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program at GWU – demanding but generous and thoughtful student mentor.

Highlights Co-organizer and keynote speaker at 1st SCAMC meeting in Founding Fellow of ACMI Past President of SCAMC, Inc – Frequent advisor at national level: – NIH DRR Biotechnology Resources Review Committee – NAS National Neural Circuitry Database Task Force – NIH consensus study panel on “The Head and Heart of Chaos: nonlinear dynamics in biological systems”. Member of editorial boards: – IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering and Computers in Biomedical Research – Annual Review of Biophysics and Bioengineering Enormous breadth of knowledge, humble, unswayed by possible financial gain.