Richard E. Dixon ’64

Richard, an infectious-disease physician, died Nov. 30, 2020, in Spokane, Wash. 

He came to Princeton from the Battle Ground Academy in Franklin, Tenn. At Princeton he majored in history, was a member of Charter, and chaired the Princeton Response Committee his senior year. 

Inspired by a movie about a surgeon, he chose to go into medicine, graduating from Vanderbilt University’s Medical School in 1969. After residencies at the University of Washington and Massachusetts General, he joined the epidemic intelligence service of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), where he headed their program to distinguish and deal with hospital-acquired vs. community-acquired infections, led the CDC program to prevent importation of highly contagious and lethal infections such as Marburg, smallpox, Ebola, and swine flu, and commanded the Astronaut Isolation Chamber.

He went on to serve as physician-in-chief at a New Jersey hospital, medical director of a large San Francisco-area physicians’ group, leader of a nationwide trade association of physician groups, and vice president of The Lewin Group, a policy, research, and consulting firm. In 2002 he returned to the CDC, focusing on issues of medical ethics, one of his passions, before retiring to California and then Washington state.

Richard is survived by his wife Sarah; his two daughters and their spouses; and his granddaughter, to whom the class offers its condolences.