John Ramsey Bronk ’52

Ramsey went to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in 1952. There he met and married Sylvia, an Englishwoman, and earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry. In 1956 he and Sylvia, also a biologist, moved to Washington, D.C., where Ramsey served at the National Institutes of Health, and then to New York, where he became a professor in Columbia University’s Department of Zoology.

After returning to England for a sabbatical year at Oxford, Ramsey joined the faculty of the new University of York in 1966. He was appointed York’s first professor of biochemistry and spent the rest of his professional career there, teaching and doing research until he retired in 1997. He established and presided over York’s degree course in biochemistry and had a key role in setting up cancer research in Yorkshire. He served as chairman of the European editorial committee of Physiological Reviews, and was widely respected as textbook author, teacher, and researcher, with a particular focus on the process of metabolism.  

The class extends its sympathy to Sylvia; their sons, Richard and Christopher; and grandchildren Justin, Philip, Edmund, and Eleanor.