Necrology

David Leslie Eaker '57

Jul. 17, 1935-Jun. 22, 2017

David Leslie Eaker ’57, a pioneering research scientist, mentor, and educator of Uppsala, Sweden, was born on July 17, 1935, in Little Falls, N.Y., the son of Dorothy Mae and Leslie Snell Eaker. He grew up about 40 miles northeast of Clinton in Dolgeville, N.Y.

On College Hill, Eaker came to be recognized for his scientific curiosity and acumen, which culminated on Class & Charter Day his senior year when he received several science awards. Elected to Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa, he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity and served as house steward during his senior year.

“David was legend as a concise presenter of facts and as a colorful storyteller,” Rich Feleppa ’57 and Neal Brown ’58 wrote of their friend. “His intellectual pursuits knew no bounds.  He seemed always available to discuss almost any subject at any hour with those he would gather around him. It was often in the quiet hours of the night that fraternity brothers and friends came to know of his night owl studying tendencies, his sense of humor, his quirky wit, and his passion for science, society, and art.”

Following Hamilton, Eaker attended Rockefeller University where he received a Ph.D. in 1962. From there he traveled to Sweden to Uppsala University as a National Institute of Health post-doctoral fellow. It proved to be a great fit because he stayed on as a member of the faculty and remained throughout his career.

From 1984 to 1998, Eaker served as chair of Uppsala’s Biochemistry Department. His responsibilities included guiding approximately 100 Ph.D. candidates who were under his supervision at any given time. His colleagues memorialized him as “a brilliant scholar, teacher, supervisor, and department leader.” For more than half a century, his research focused on the chemical and functional characterization of snake venom toxins. In connection with his research he also won unequalled respect as an expert in protein analysis, both in the case of sequencing and quantitative amino acid analysis. A laboratory facility created by him for precise amino acid analysis has provided high-quality data not only for the university’s Biochemistry Department but also for other academic, public, and commercial organizations around the world.

David L. Eaker died on June 22, 2017. He is survived by his wife, Birgit Katrin Agmaln, whom he had married in 1965; two daughters and a son; and five grandchildren.

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