Remembering Ronald Killiany, PhD
The following message, sent in remembrance of Ronald Killiany, PhD (a researcher at the Center for Systems Neuroscience) was originally sent to the BU School of Medicine community from Dean Karen Antman, MD, and Anatomy & Neurobiology Chair Jennifer Luebke, PhD. We repost it here with their permission.
We are saddened to announce the death of Ronald Killiany, PhD, professor of anatomy & neurobiology, who passed away Friday, March 3, peacefully at home with his wife Miriam at his side following a long illness.
Dr. Killiany was a member of the department for more than 30 years. He held secondary appointments in the departments of neurology and radiology as well as environmental health at BUSPH.
Dr. Killiany received his PhD in psychology from Northeastern University in 1991 and then joined BU where he engaged in three years of postdoctoral training in neuroanatomy in the department of anatomy & neurobiology, training that formed the basis of his wide breadth of both teaching and research expertise. He was a broadly experienced and innovative expert on many modalities of neuroimaging and on neuroanatomical studies as well as in cognitive assessment of humans and non-human primates.
Dr. Killiany published extensively on the basic and clinical anatomical sciences, neuroimaging and alterations to the brain during normal and pathological aging. He was a key investigator and leader for the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative. Together with the late Rahul Desikan, his PhD student at the time, Dr. Killiany published a highly influential MRI automated parcellation system that is used worldwide in studies of the human cerebral cortex and has been cited more than 10,000 times.
For more than a decade (until 2020) Dr. Killiany was the director of the Center for Biomedical Imaging at BUMC, an important role that facilitated imaging studies by BUMC and affiliated scientists.
Dr. Killiany was a cherished colleague to faculty in the three BUMC departments with which he was affiliated, and many will recall long, interesting discussions with him about novel research avenues. He was a caring and thoughtful primary mentor to many PhD and master’s students in the department and served on the research advisory committees and dissertation defense committees of many others. His door was always open, and he was always willing to listen and provide thoughtful advice.
Our sincere condolences to his wife Miriam, his friends and colleagues.
Ronald Killiany Obituary – Marblehead, MA
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