George V. Hillyer (1943-2015)

George V. Hillyer passed away in 2015, at the age of 72. Dr. Hillyer was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where as an undergraduate student he began parasitological research at the U.S. Army Tropical Research Medical Laboratory under the tutelage of Drs. Lawrence Ritchie and Lyman Frick. In 1968, Dr. Hillyer received a B.S. in Biology from the University of Puerto Rico, and enrolled in the Microbiology graduate program of the University of Chicago, where under the guidance of Dr. Robert M. Lewert he investigated renal pathology in hamsters infected with Schistosoma mansoni and Schistosoma japonicum. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1972, Dr. Hillyer returned to Puerto Rico, where he assumed the rank of Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus, and rose to the rank of Professor in 1980. In 1987 Dr. Hillyer moved his laboratory to the...