Edwin Furshpan, PhD, HMS Faculty

Former Robert Henry Pfeiffer Professor of Neurobiology, Emeritus

Edwin Furshpan (d. 2019) completed his doctoral work at Cal Tech in 1955. He worked in Bernard Katz’s laboratory in London, where he met David Potter. The two went on to work with Steve Kuffler at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Furshpan was part of the inaugural Neurobiology Department at Harvard Medical School in 1966. Throughout his career, he was an advocate for diversity and inclusion. Along with Dr. Potter, he founded the Native American High School Summer Program at Harvard Medical School to increase the number of Native American students attending leading colleges and universities.

Interview Transcript (pdf)

"So we have this meeting, a stormy meeting, and the proposal, as you know, before the meeting, was that Harvard Medical School should undertake, should commit itself, to admitting a substantial number of, as the word was then, disadvantaged students. No mention of race, but disadvantaged."

“King was focused on something really important and went about it in the most productive and creative way. He managed to do it while insisting on nonviolence.”

”So we paid attention not only to grades. You know, grades were important, but if we thought somebody could do the work, we didn’t care whether they had all A’s, or whether they had 800s on their MCATs. It was character. It was accomplishment. It was motivation. It was vision.”

”You have to take into account not only where people are now, but where they came from.”

Year
1969
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School Timeline
HMS
Interview
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