Robert H. Bassin ’59

We know relatively little about Bob’s undergraduate career, and still less about his postgraduate career. The Nassau Herald tells us that he prepared for Princeton at the Peddie School, where he was a member of the wrestling and soccer teams, and that he carried his grappling talents to the freshman and JV teams at Princeton. His sedentary talents comprised jazz piano and bridge playing. He majored in biology, joined Prospect Club, and roomed there with Leonard Steinfeld his junior and senior years. The Nassau Herald also notes cryptically that “despite being a pre-med, he was known for his frequent and prolonged weekend jaunts followed by frantic nights of cramming to catch up,” perhaps occasioned by one Shirley Shooman at the University of Maryland, whom he wed in 1961.

Bob’s Princeton degree was followed by a Ph.D. in biology from Rutgers, some time in the Army, and work as a microbiologist at the Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health.

Bob died Oct. 3, 2023. He is survived by Shirley; three sons; and eight grandchildren, to whom the class offers its condolences.