Sudden demise of Professor James Mitchell
The Department of Health Sciences and Technology of the ETH Zürich is deeply saddened to announce the sudden demise of our highly esteemed colleague and friend, Professor James R. Mitchell, on November 18th, 2020.
Jay joined our faculty as a Professor for Healthy Aging about a year ago. Before joining the ETH, he held a position of full professor at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, which he had joined in 2007 as a junior faculty member. He obtained his first academic degree at the University of Virginia, followed by his doctorate from the University of California (Berkeley) and a highly successful postdoctoral stint at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands. During this period, his interest in the molecular and systemic causes of aging started, and evolved to Jay becoming a world-renowned expert in the field of aging biology, reflected by his numerous prestigious awards, including the Glenn Award, the American Association of Aging Award, and the Ellison Medical Foundation Award.
Jay’s brilliant mind, combined with his exceptionally humble personality, his unlimited enthusiasm for new hypotheses and ideas, and his perseverance in obtaining fundamentally novel insights were his hallmarks and left a deep and lasting impression on everyone who met him.
We are devastated to have lost an outstandingly intelligent, witty and passionate colleague and friend. He is profoundly missed.
Our hearts go out to his family, to his wife Elisabeth, and their three sons, Ian, Lucas and Darius.
Stephen J. Ferguson
Head of Department, Department of Health Sciences and Technology