Joseph Colcord Curtis.

• Position: OBITUARIES

WORCESTER - Joseph Colcord Curtis of Worcester, Massachusetts, died on January 22. He was born in Manchester, New Hampshire on February 14, 1930 to Mary Evelyn (Perkins) and Harold Johnson Curtis, and grew up in Derry, New Hampshire. He attended Pinkerton Academy where he excelled as a student and athlete, playing varsity baseball and helping to lead Pinkerton to its 1947 Class B State Basketball Championship. He attained the rank of Eagle Scout when he was fifteen.

After graduating from Pinkerton in 1947, Joe attended Cornell University as the recipient of a Cornell National Scholarship, graduating with a B.A. in Zoology in 1951. He then served in the U.S. Navy from 1952-1955, first as a combat information center officer and later as an operations instructor at Naval Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. After leaving the Navy, he attended Brown University where he earned a Ph.D. in Biology. He subsequently completed a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship before joining the faculty of Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Dr. Curtis was a professor of cell biology at Clark University for thirty-five years. At Clark, he became known as a passionate and talented educator who challenged his students to meet high academic standards. He advised many undergraduate and graduate students who went on to pursue careers in medicine, scientific research and teaching. He was also actively engaged in research, publishing numerous articles in refereed medical and scientific journals.

As a boy, Joe worked on local farms, an experience he replicated for his children by...