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


James Davis said...
I had the very good fortune to have been a colleague of Brian at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center for a number of years after finishing my doctorate. What I learned from him during that time period played an important role in shaping my career at California State University/Long Beach (CSULB), my institution after I left Harbor-UCLA Medical Center until I retired. An example of Brian’s wit occurred when he visited me in the Exercise Physiology Laboratory once I got settled in at CSULB. The lab had been designed and equipped by my predecessor. It had ten exercise stations with a cabinet at each station containing various equipment items, e.g., blood pressure cuff and Haldane gas analysis apparatus. After seeing all ten of the later, Brian declared, “You’ve got more Haldanes in this lab than Haldane.”

Of Brian’s numerous presentations at ACSM meetings over the years, one sticks out in my mind. It was his Joseph B. Wolffe Memorial Lecture titled “Oxygen uptake: Related determinates of exercise tolerance--the contour and the maximum,” presented at the 1999 ACSM Annual Meeting. In one part of the presentation, Brian described an ingenious procedure to confirm, or not, that the VO2 peak obtained from an incremental exercise test was the VO2max.

Over the last 10 years or so, I visited Brian when he returned to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center for the bi-annual Exercise Practicum courses. I have very fond memories of those meetings and will miss this extraordinary scientist and friend.

James Davis
13 December 2011 19:31
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