Edward Donald French, Ph.D. (1946–2025)
Edward Donald French, Ph.D. (1946–2025) was a member of ASPET since 1989. He was a member of the Science Policy Committee (2004–2013) and the Subcommittee on Public Information (2001–2004).
Dr. French received his Bachelor of Science degree from California State University, Long Beach, in Zoology, and earned his Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the University of California, Los Angeles. After completing his doctorate, he became a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Arthur V. Davis Center for Behavioral Neurobiology, The Salk Institute, San Diego, California, under the tutelage of Dr. Floyd E. Bloom. While working at the Salk Institute, he was awarded a one-year Alexander von Humboldt fellowship at the Max-Planck-Institute for Psychiatry in Munich, Germany.
From 1980–1986, he served as a Research Assistant Professor at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1986, he was promoted to Research Associate Professor of Pharmacology with a secondary appointment in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. From 1986–87, he served as Acting Chief, Neuroscience Program, Maryland Psychiatric Research Center in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. French was invited to join the faculty at the University of Arizona (UA) College of Medicine in 1988 where he remained until his retirement as a tenured full professor of Pharmacology in 2018. He earned the title of Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology after his retirement. While at the UA, he was Chair of the Graduate Program in Pharmacology and Toxicology, directed the pharmacology course for second-year medical students, directed the Cardiovascular, Pulmonary, Renal Block from 2009 to 2015 in the second-year medical school curriculum, and Chaired the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Pharmacology and Toxicology in the Graduate College at the University of Arizona. In 2018, he retired as a Full Professor from the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine’s Department of Pharmacology. He holds the title of Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology in that Department.
In addition to his work with ASPET, he was a member of the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) Initial Review Group, Neurophysiology & Neuroanatomy Research Committee, and served as a special review consultant for NIDA as well.
During the last six months of his life, when Dr. French was in hospice care, many of his visitors were former graduate students, medical students, and faculty with whom he worked. He is survived by his loving wife, Vicki Gotkin, with whom he spent over 28 years, and to whom he was married nearly 23 years. He was a loving father to Lindsay Nicole French and Nicholas Alexander French (Leah Kaye), and stepfather to Steven Michael Adler and Kelsey Adler (Michael Gazzolo). He had five grandchildren, Chloe French-Rosas, Charles French-Rosas, Franklin Alexander French-Rosas, Benjamin French, and Martin French.