F. Gaynor Evans—A short biography

Abstract

Francis Gaynor Evans was born on 7 December, I907 in Le Mars, Iowa. His father came from Georgia, while his mother was from an Iowan family, the ancestors having arrived in Plymouth. Massachusetts in 1622. The name Gaynor is Irish in origin, and stems from his mother’s family, while Evans. a Welsh name, stems from the paternal side of the family. He attended Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and in 1931 received his Bachelor’s degree in Zoology. He continued his education at Columbia University (New York, NY). where he received his Master’sdegree in 1932 and his Doctorate (Ph.D.) in 1939 (both in Zoology). He worked with William K. Gregory, who in addition to being the head of Vertebrate Zoology at Columbia was also Curator of Comparative and Human Anatomy at the American Museum of Natural History. His first paper (together with Gregory) was on ‘Williston’s Law’ and dealt with the evolution of skull bones in the vertebrates. The subsequent scientific publications also involved comparative aspects of the skeletal system. He was Lecturer in Zoology at Columbia 19351937 and also taught comparative anatomy in the Evening Extension Program at the College of the City of New York. In the summers of 1935 and 1936 he served as Chief Biologist on the Rainbow BridgeMonument Valley Expeditions in Arizona and Utah, collecting small mammals, reptiles and amphibians for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City (and was subsequently. in 1937, elected member of The Explorers Club). For three terms (1931-32, 1933-34 and 1935-36) he \vas Lydia C. Roberts Fellow at Columbia University and in 1938 the New York Academy of Sciences awarded him the A. Cressy Morrison Prize in Natural Science for his Ph.D. Thesis ‘The morphology and functional evolution of the atlas-axis complex from fish to mammals’. In 1938 he left New York City for Durham, New Hampshire, to assume a position as Instructor of Zoology and to teach human anatomy and comparative anatomy for three years at the University of New Hampshire. Then followed two years in Durham, North Carolina, as Instructor of Zoology at Duke University, where he taught comparative anatomy and general zoology. In 1943 he moved to Baltimore and the Medical School of the University of Maryland to take a position as Assistant Professor and to teach gross anatomy. His interest in comparative osteology continued, with functional aspects added. Two years later (lY45) he left Maryland for Michigan. where he was to spend the longest and most recent part of his university career. First he went to the College of Medicine at Wayne State University in Detroit and advanced from Assistant Professor to Professor in charge of Gross Anatomy. Here he established a long-lasting and fruitful collaboration with Herbert R. Lissner of the Department of Engineering Mechanics. Their first joint paper dealt with studies on ‘stresscoat’ deformation of the femur under static vertical loading. These studies were expanded to dynamic loading, regional differences in bones, various loading conditions and bone orientations as well as fracture mechanisms and tensile loading. This work was later summarized in his classic book Swess and Swain in Bones (1957). He went in the academic year 1956-1957 to Italy as a Fulbright Fellow (Research scholar A) and worked in the laboratory of Rudolf0 Amprino (Department of Anatomy) at the University of Bari. At Wayne State University he served on several committees at the College of Medicine. While in Detroit he wrote A Laboratory Manualjor Human Gross Anaromy (1950) and an Atlas of Human Anaromy, Simplified (19.57) as well as teaching art anatomy by lecture demonstration courses with the living model to students in painting and sculpture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art (Bloomfield Hills, MI). In 1959 he accepted the invitation to take up a position as Professor of Anatomy at The University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor. From 1967 to 1973 he also served as Research Professor of Anatomy in the Department of Biomechanics at the University of Michigan Highway Safety Research Institute. He continued his research on bone biomechanics, diversifying into a number of approaches and techniques. It is impossible to describe in detail his research achievements (the development of a substantial part of the science of bone biomechanics, and collecting and analyzing a wealth of important data in this field) within the limited space available here. This account will, therefore, be limited to indicating the research areas. The reader is referred to his second classical book, Mechanical Properlies of Bone (1973), for a detailed discussion of the field. The articles in this issue further reflect aspects of his impact on the science of biomechanics. His bibliography is printed elsewhere in this issue.