Nicholas Robert Cozzarelli ’60

Nick died March 19, 2006, at home in Berkeley, Calif., from complications of treatment for Burkitt's lymphoma.

He grew up in Jersey City, N.J., and came to Princeton as a first-generation college student. He majored in biology and was a member of Elm Club. After graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, he spent a year at Yale Medical School, then received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Harvard in 1966.

After postdoctoral study at Stanford University, he taught molecular biology at the University of Chicago and, beginning in 1982, at the University of California, Berkeley. Working at the frontiers of molecular biology on the mathematical foundations of DNA, Nick became, in the words of colleague, "a giant in a field that has been transformed by his deep and wide-ranging discoveries." His students report that he was a brilliant and inspiring teacher.

In 1995 he became the editor-in-chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A fellow of the leading scientific organizations in the United States, Nick was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989.

The class extends its sincere condolences to Nick's wife, Linda, and his daughter, Laura Cozzarelli-Wood.