The Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology mourns the passing of our friend and colleague Harvey Lyman

Professor Emeritus Harvey Lyman passed away on July 11, 2025 at the age of 93.  Harvey was born in San Francisco and began his academic career at UC Berkeley.  After serving as a medic in the US Army during the Korean War, he obtained an MS degree from the University of Washington and then a PhD from Brandeis University. There he began his work on chloroplasts and photosynthesis in the single-celled organism Euglena gracilis, which would remain the focus of his research for the rest of his career.  After completing his PhD, Harvey moved to Brookhaven National Laboratory and served as a staff scientist for several years before joining the faculty at Stony Brook in 1969.  He retired from Stony Brook in 2015, continuing to live in Port Jefferson with his wife Mary and was a frequent visitor to the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology. 

Harvey leaves a legacy of scholarship and service to Stony Brook and the BCB Department.  He established the upper division undergraduate Cell Biology class (BIO310) and its reputation as a rigorous course. On a slightly less academic note, Harvey’s popular class on wine introduced a generation of Stony Brook students to the finer points of viniculture. Harvey was also deeply involved in the mentoring and advising of both graduate and undergraduate students, serving at different times as the Graduate Program director and as the Undergraduate Advisor for the Biochemistry major.  Two different fellowships, the Harvard Lyman Award for Summer Study and the Harvard Lyman Scholarship in the College of Arts and Sciences, have been established in Harvey’s honor over the years. He will be greatly missed.

For more about Harvey in his own words, click here.