| George Wald  Born: 18-Nov-1906
Birthplace: New York, NY
Died: 12-Apr-1997
Location of death: Cambridge, MA
Cause of death: unspecified
Gender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Biologist, Activist Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Physiology of the retina Working with Nobel laureates Otto Warburg and Paul Karrer, George Wald was the first scientist to identify Vitamin A in the retina. Later, at Harvard, he investigated the three different types of retinal cone cells, and showed that each cells' reaction to color is brought about by the presence of three different protein pigments. For this work Wald was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology in 1967, with Haldan K. Hartline and Ragnar Granit.
Wald once said, "Science goes from question to question; big questions, and little, tentative answers. The questions as they age grow ever broader, the answers are seen to be more limited."
After winning his Nobel honors, Wald used his newfound celebrity to speak out against the Vietnam War, the nuclear arms race, and nuclear power. "A Generation in Search of a Future", a 1969 speech he delivered at an anti-war rally and scientists' strike at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was reprinted in such major papers as the Boston Globe, Washington Post and San Francisco Chronicle, and became popular as a long-playing album. Father: Isaac Wald
Mother: Ernestine Rosenmann
Wife: Frances Kingsley (div.)
Wife: Ruth Hubbard (biochemist, m. 1958)
Son: Michael Wald
Son: David Wald
Son: Elijah Wald (singer-songwriter)
Daughter: Deborah Wald
High School: Brooklyn Technical High School, New York, NY (1922)
University: BS, New York University (1927)
University: PhD Zoology, Columbia University (1932)
Scholar: Biology, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, Heidelberg (1932-33)
Scholar: Biology, University of Zürich (1933)
Scholar: Physiology, University of Chicago (1933-34)
Teacher: Biochemical Sciences, Harvard University (1934-35)
Teacher: Biology, Harvard University (1935-48)
Professor: Biology, Harvard University (1948-77)
Professor: Biochemistry, University of California (1956)
Lasker Award 1953
Rumford Prize 1959
Guggenheim Fellowship (1963-64)
Nobel Prize for Medicine 1967 (with Haldan K. Hartline and Ragnar Granit)
National Academy of Sciences 1950
American Philosophical Society 1958
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Chemical Society
American Philosophical Society 1958
American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
National Academy of Sciences 1950
National Research Council Fellowship (1932-34)
Optical Society of America
Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society
Austrian Ancestry Paternal
Polish Ancestry Paternal
Bavarian Ancestry Maternal
German Ancestry Maternal
Author of books:
Twenty-Six Afternoons of Biology: An Introductory Laboratory Manual (1962)
Don't Reform the Draft -- Get Rid of It (1967)
To Repossess America (1972)
The End of Life (1973)
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