Obituary

Brian James Whipp, Ph.D., D.Sc

March 3, 1937 – October 20, 2011

Brian Whipp sadly passed away at the University of Wales Hospital in Cardiff, Wales following a short illness. He leaves his children from his first marriage, Laura and Brian, and his wife, Sue.

Brian was born in Tredegar, Wales and, through what was to be a lifelong interest in sport, gained a Diploma in Physical Education at the then Loughborough College in England – the United Kingdom’s foremost Physical Education Training College. He continued his studies at the University of Florida in Gainesville and then at Stanford University where, as a Danforth Fellow, he gained his PhD in Physiology in 1967, under the tutelage of Karlman Wasserman. He then set out on what was to become an illustrious career in physiology, both as a research investigator and a teacher, at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre in Torrance, California, proceeding through the academic ranks to become Professor of Physiology and Medicine and Vice-Chairman of UCLA’s Department of Physiology. In 1992, he returned to the United Kingdom to become Professor and Chairman of the Physiology Department at the University of London’s St George’s Hospital Medical School - from which he retired as Emeritus Professor in 2001. He remained active nonetheless, working from his home in the Welsh village of Crickhowell and also presenting numerous invited lectures worldwide.

His research interests centred on the control of ventilation and pulmonary gas exchange during exercise in health and disease, with special reference to the non-steady state. In addition to more than 300 publications on these topics, he was author or co-author of nine books and monographs, including the influential “Principles of Exercise Testing and Interpretation”. He was also an accomplished teacher, combining scientific rigor with humor, wit and enthusiasm.

In recognition of his services, Brian received many academic honours: a Doctorate of Science by Loughborough University in England in 1982; a Citation Award of the American College of Sports Medicine in 1990; Chairmanship of the Respiratory Commission of the International Union of Physiological Sciences from 1997-2002; the 2002 Joseph B. Wolffe Memorial Lectureship of the American College of Sports Medicine; the 2007 Distinguished Scientist Honor Lectureship of the American College of Chest Physicians; the 2008 American Physiological Society Honor Award (Environmental and Exercise Physiology); the 2010 J-C Yernault Lectureship of the European Respiratory Society; and the 2010 D.B. Dill Lectureship of the American College of Sports Medicine.

But Brian had many other “strings to his bow”, each of which he pursued with the same enthusiasm, zeal and attention-to-detail that characterised his scientific work – literature, philosophy, classical music, jazz and walking in his beloved hills and mountains of The Brecon Beacons.

He is, and will remain, sorely missed.

Tuesday 20 December 2011


Denham Ward said...
Dear Sue,
I was so very much saddened to learn of Brian's most untimely passing. He was such a good friend, mentor and inspiration to me in my career. Both as a physiologist who taught me the value of a well poised question and a novel physiological experiment and as a teacher whom I greatly admired and tried to emulate; he was an important part of my career.

I also so fondly remember our times together at the Oxford meetings and in the formation of the "Southern California Ventilatory Control Society". He took such pleasure, with a twinkle in his eye, in devising the logo for the SCVCS, such that the palindrome also had a dot over the V and had a rise and fall in the font size like Cheyenne-Stokes respiration!

I am sorry that I had not had an opportunity to see Brian recently, but he will be missed and remembered anytime I think about respiratory physiology.
29 November 2011 14:37
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