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John Ashe
March 27, 1944 - October 1, 2004
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) -- Professor John Ashe,
Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at UC Riverside, died
Friday, Oct. 1 at his Riverside home, after a bout with cancer. He was 60.
A Philadelphia native, he joined the faculty in 1980 as a professor in the
Department of Psychology. He studied systems neuroscience, which includes
the synaptic connections between brain cells. He held faculty appointments
in both the department of psychology and the department of cell biology
and neuroscience. Between 1997 and 2002, he served as Chair of the
Department of Psychology, a period that saw significant growth in the
stature of the department and the number of academic programs.
As an associate dean, his function included building the graduate programs
of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences.
Professor Ashe, a jazz fan who kept a picture of Miles Davis on his office
wall, right above the model of a brain on his desk, worked with all the
disciplines in the college.
“What we would like to see is very high caliber faculty guiding very
bright graduate students in cutting edge, original research,” he said in
one interview last year. “Our goal is to train young professionals that
are competitive with the very best.”
Throughout his career, Professor Ashe was a devoted mentor to students. He
frequently participated in programs that would attract underrepresented
minorities into scientific fields.
“We are shocked and saddened by the passing of John Ashe, who has been a
very important and wise leader here in the college,” said Joel Martin,
interim dean of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “The
Dean's office staff and I are all committed to honor John with a
significant effort of some kind. Our first thought is to develop support
for a scholarship or mentoring program for underrepresented graduate
students in the lab sciences, to build on his extraordinary success in
mentoring underrepresented students in his lab.”
Professor Ashe earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology here at UC
Riverside; his Ph.D. in biological science in 1977 at UC Irvine, and
served as a postdoctoral researcher in neuropharmacology in 1977 at the UC
San Francisco School of Medicine.
There will be a memorial service Friday, October 8, at 12 noon at Brown
Colonial Mortuary, 204 W. 17th St., Santa Ana. A memorial service on
campus is still in the planning stages.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests contributions be made for a John
Ashe Memorial Fund. Checks may be sent to the UC Riverside Foundation
(noting the John Ashe Memorial Fund), 252A Highlander Hall, University of
California, Riverside, CA 92521.
The University of California, Riverside is a major research
institution and a national center for the humanities. Key areas of
research include nanotechnology, genomics, environmental studies, digital
arts and sustainable growth and development. With a current undergraduate
and graduate enrollment of nearly 17,000, the campus is projected to grow
to 21,000 students by 2010. Located in the heart of inland Southern
California, the nearly 1,200-acre, park-like campus is at the center of
the region's economic development. Visit
www.ucr.edu or call 909-787-5185 for more information. Media sources
are available at
http://www.mediasources.ucr.edu/.
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