About Marshall A. Lichtman
Marshall and his wife Alice Jo
Marshall Lichtman was born in 1934 and grew up in the Bronx and in Buffalo, NY. He moved to Rochester, New York in 1960 for his medical residency at the University of Rochester School of Medicine. After two years in the Public Health Service at the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, he returned to Rochester in 1965 as Chief Resident in Medicine and would stay at the University of Rochester for the rest of his career. There he devoted himself to the care of patients with blood cell diseases, especially leukemia and lymphoma, conducted research on blood diseases, taught medical students and residents in the department of medicine and guided the training of clinical and research fellows in hematology. In addition to providing leadership as Chief of the hematology division, he served as Dean of Academic Affairs and Research for ten years (1979-89) and, subsequently, as Dean of the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry for six years. He has served on the National Institutes of Health Hematology Study Section, as President of the American Society of Hematology, Executive Vice- President of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the Board of Governors of the American Red Cross, and was appointed by the Governor of New York to the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York (2010-18).
Dr. Lichtman has served on the editorial board of nine scientific journals and as the editor-in- chief of Blood Cells, Molecules, and Diseases (2000-13). He has been the editor of three monographs and five textbooks of hematology. He has conducted research and authored hundreds of scientific articles, reviews, editorials, letters, books, and book chapters on the physiology, biochemistry, and disorders of blood cells. In 2017, he was given the Wallace H. Coulter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Hematology by the American Society of Hematology.
In 2018, wanting to be closer to family and reaping the bonus of warmer weather, Dr. Lichtman and his wife of 63 years (married 1957), Alice Jo, moved to Los Angeles, CA. Rochester is and always will remain close to his heart and he continues his many friendships and connections to the medical center and community as Professor Emeritus of Medicine and of Biochemistry and Biophysics and Dean Emeritus of the School of Medicine and Dentistry. At age 86 (in 2020)years, Dr. Lichtman continues to serve as an editor and author of eleven chapters of the tenth edition of the leading textbook of hematology, which will be published in December 2020.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, with time at home, Dr. Lichtman has used the time to do what he loves most: to study, learn, write, and by doing so, teach. His essay topics include not only science and medicine, but delve into history, literature, politics and other fascinating (and sometimes esoteric) subjects. We never know what he will write about next!