F. Curtis Dohan Jr. ’57

“He was brilliant — but you’d never know it,” one classmate said of Curt. He died at home Nov. 16, 2021, cared for by his family, of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. “He always had a smile on his face,” said another classmate. 

Curt’s grades at Princeton placed him near No. 1 in the class despite his having chosen electives in liberal arts rather than sciences. After Harvard Medical School, he became a researcher and popular neuropathology lecturer at the University of Tennessee Health Center, teaching medical students and residents in packed classrooms about diseases of the brain. 

Curt retired in 2011, five years after a stroke, but remained at the center, helping residents pass their boards and continuing his father’s research. He wrote in the 60th-reunion yearbook, “With my daughter Katherine’s help, I identified what I believe to be the gene variant that causes the genetically determined defect in the intestinal lining postulated by my father.” Johns Hopkins University will take over now, testing the postulation. The problem can affect a significant part of the population.

At Princeton, Curt was a physics major, varsity wrestler, and member of Ivy Club. Seven roommates enjoyed his company senior year. Curt and Jean Rittmeuller (Harvard Ph.D.) met in 1978, at the Brattle (old movies) Theatre in Cambridge. Curt’s son, David, graduated from Princeton in 2015 summa cum laude in computer science.