Ellis D. Avner ’70

One of our outstanding practicing physicians and teachers, Ellis died following an onslaught of cancer Dec. 25, 2021.

Ellis came to us from Taylor Allderdice High School in Pittsburgh, where he was a state debate champion; he remained close to many of his classmates there throughout his life. As he vividly describes in our 50th-reunion yearbook, he encountered a strange new culture at Princeton (hardly unique among us) where he found his way through lightweight football, Hillel, and the great religion faculty, where Mal Diamond became his mentor. Ellis spent his junior year researching the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where he also met Jane, his wife of 51 years. 

After graduation he turned to medical school at Penn, then to physician-scientist positions in Pittsburgh, Seattle, Cleveland, and Milwaukee. He specialized in pediatric nephrology, an essentially new field in 1970, in which he practiced alongside and taught a generation of leaders in the discipline, who now head departments across the globe. He was, as well, a leading author and editor of multiple books and journals in his specialty, and his mountain of honors included a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Pediatrics. None of this seemed to impede his and his sons’ gleeful fixation on the Steelers and the Pirates. 

Along with Jane, their sons Benjamin and Jeremy, and Ellis’ sister Marcia, we are deeply thankful for all his groundbreaking work and teaching, a continuing blessing to children everywhere. But we also miss our friend.