Obituary
It is with sadness that I announce the death of William
Stanley Battersby on Tuesday, June 24 at the age of 79.
Stan received his B.S. in biology from New York University in
the early 1940s before entering the army where he had a
distinguished record. When he left service, he had a rank of major
and was highly decorated. He received his Ph.D. degree from New
York University about 1951 where he was Hans Leukas Teuber's first
doctoral student. He then became a research associate in the
department of neurology of Mt. Sinai Hospital which at that time,
was staffed with many others who became well known in visual
science, neural science, and neurology. Among these were both
Teuber and Morris Bender, co-authors with him on their 1960 book
which remains the definitive description of visual abnormalities
resulting from war injury induced cerebral damage. In addition, he
began collaborating with Irving Wagman on studies of light and dark
adaptation. Wagman and many others were coauthors with Stan on a
series of papers which appeared in the late 1950s and throughout
the 1960s in many different journals but most commonly American
Journal of Physiology, Journal of the Optical Society of America,
and Vision Research. Many of these papers began with the phrase,
"Neural Limitations of Visual Excitability," followed by a colon
(:), roman numeral, and further description. During the time
period from 1951-1960, he supplemented his meager Mt. Sinai salary
by moonlighting as a part time instructor at many New York City
area colleges and universities. When I first began working with
him in the late 1960s, I was amazed to discover just how many
neural scientists, visual scientists, and psychologists were first
introduced to either neural science and/or vision by Stan's
undergraduate courses. In the late 1960s in New York city, as much
as 25% typical psychology departments remembered him fondly as an
undergraduate course instructor who was generally described as an
"exceedingly dynamic lecturer."
In 1960, Stan moved to the Illinois State Psychiatric
Institute in Chicago under Percival Bailey and in 1964, returned to
New York City where he became a professor of Psychology at Queens
College of the City University of New York, a position he held
until his retirement in 1981. While working at Queens College, he
founded (along with Walter Essman and John Stamm) the
neuropsychology doctoral program in 1965 which has since graduated
157 Ph.D. students. He also served as the Queens College
Psychology department chairman. While in Chicago or at Queens
College, he personally directed over 30 Ph.D. students and post
doctoral fellows, many of whom are extremely well known today.
Stan is survived by his wife Doris, his son Kevin, his
daughter Karen Feather Battersby, and three grandchildren. Those
of us who worked with him will remember him most by his
contributions to the understanding of visual problems resulting
from cerebral damage, the role of post-photoreceptor processes
involved with visual adaptation, and his inspiration and enthusiasm
for neural science and vision research.
T. E. Frumkes, Queens College 6/27/97