Ralph Evans

Ralph Evans was an exceptionally talented young scientist and wonderful human being. He joined Bruce Levin’s lab as a doctoral student while I was a postdoc in that lab. Bruce and I met Ralph at the joint meeting of the Genetics Society of America, the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the American Society of Naturalists, which was held in St. Louis in June of 1983. That was an historic conference for anyone who studies microbial evolution because several leaders in that nascent field—including Bruce, Dan Dykhuizen, Dan Hartl, and Barry Hall—arranged a session to discuss the future of the field. Among other things, that session led to the organization of the Gordon Research Conference on Microbial Population Biology; the first of those conferences was held in 1985 and chaired by Bruce.

Among the highlights of that 1983 conference was meeting Ralph Evans. Ralph was from Texas, and he had done his undergraduate studies at Rice University. He was in graduate school at the University of Minnesota working in ecology. But after Ralph heard about this new field, he was determined to join it. I can still recall chatting with Ralph after the discussion session about the exciting things one could do with microbes to understand ecology, evolution, and infectious disease. I forget the exact timing, but Ralph soon joined Bruce’s lab at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (with the blessing of Peter Abrams, his advisor at Minnesota). Ralph and I talked about science pretty much every day from his arrival in the lab until I left to join the faculty at the University of California, Irvine, in the late summer of 1985.

Ralph and I not only shared scientific interests, but Ralph and his wife Barbara (Bard as he called her) became wonderful friends with my wife Madeleine and me. Ralph had a soft Texas drawl, a gentle sense of humor, and a kind and sweet demeanor. He took a special liking to our toddler son Daniel—I still remember all of us walking in a snowy field as Ralph pulled Daniel in a sled. We even shared a washing machine with Ralph and Bard—they owned the machine but had no place to put it, while we had the space and a great need for one!

Tragically, as Ralph was pursuing his doctoral research, he was struck with an aggressive and ultimately lethal brain cancer. He and Bard battled through it together. She joined him in the lab to help with his work, and we sent a then-new-fangled watch that had an alarm setting to help Ralph remember when to do the next step of his experiments. Ralph had a remission, and we all had high hopes when he set off to do a postdoc with Dan Dykhuizen at Stony Brook. Alas, the cancer returned. I gave a talk at Stony Brook and got to say goodbye to Ralph, but not really—for he was in the hospital and non-responsive.

In loving memory of Ralph, and in recognition of the areas of science that most interested him, Madeleine and I have established the Ralph Evans Award. To honor Ralph’s legacy, the award may be given to either a postdoctoral researcher or senior graduate student in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics here at MSU for important contributions to the understanding of microbial evolution and its underlying ecological and genetic processes.

Thank you, Ralph, for your friendship and inspiration.

[Bruce with three of his UMass graduate students—Lone, Judy, and Ralph—in the late 1980s.]

[Ralph (far left) at a party at Bruce’s home in Amherst in the summer of 1985.]

[Here Madeleine and I are with Zachary Blount, who received the inaugural Ralph Evans Award.]

[Group photo from the first GRC on Microbial Population Biology: Bruce is front and center, and Ralph is near the back, center-left with a big smile.]