Arthur Whiteley, the eminent sea-urchin developmental and cell biologist who retired in 1985 as professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Washington, died April 15, 2013. He was 96.

Whiteley received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Kalamazoo College in 1938 and a master’s degree in zoology from Wisconsin in 1939. In 1945, he earned a Ph.D. in biology from Princeton doing war-related research with Professor E. Newton Harvey. After work at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and Cal Tech, Whiteley began teaching at Washington in 1947, and had a lab at its Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL).

After studying metabolic enzymes, he expanded to the DNA and RNA content of sea-urchin embryos. Whiteley also studied developmental and evolutionary changes in the gene program of echinoderm. The first species of a new Nemertean genus was named for him, Peavinenemertes whiteleyi.

He was known also for 20 years of heading an NIH-sponsored Interdepartmental Developmental Biology Training Program, and especially for supporting the international community of sea urchin developmental biologists and FHL.

Whiteley was predeceased in 1990 by his wife and colleague, Helen, a microbiology professor for whom he founded the Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center at FHL.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.

Graduate Class of 1945