[BIC-announce] Dr. Keith Worsley - Obituary

[Jennifer Chew, Ms.]

                                                              Obituary

                                               Keith John Worsley
(1951-2009)

 

It is with the deep sadness that we announce the passing of one the
greatest figures in the brain mapping field. Keith Worsley died at his
home in Chicago after a brief, brave battle against cancer. Keith spent
most of his professional life at McGill University in Montreal as a
Professor of Mathematics and Statistics before moving to the University
of Chicago in the fall of 2008. Shortly after his arrival he was
diagnosed with islet cell cancer and, despite the best of care, he
passed away on Friday, February 27th at his home with his family.

 

Raised in New Zealand, Keith spent much of his working life at McGill
collaborating with colleagues in the McConnell Brain Imaging Centre at
the Montreal Neurological Institute. He made many fundamental
contributions to the field of Human Brain Mapping in the statistical
analysis of functional and structural brain imaging data, beginning with
his seminal 1992 paper on the applications of Random Field Theory in the
analysis of PET activation experimental data. He subsequently extended
these approaches to the analysis of fMRI and structural MRI data,
incorporating the time domain and scale space. In recent years he was
fascinated by the statistical aspects of "connectivity" in all its
forms, functional, structural and DTI-based. He developed
publically-available software packages for volume-based (fMRIstat) and
surface-based (surfstat) data analysis that are widely used in the HBM
community. Keith served in various leadership positions on OHBM Council
and was actively involved in many international collaborations within
the HBM community. He was held in equally high regard in his home
discipline, being a Canadian Statistical Society Gold Medallist, a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society
of New Zealand. While many of us often found his publications in brain
mapping journals intimidating because of their theoretical rigour and
virtuosity, those papers were no match for the more general papers he
published in statistical journals !.

 

Keith was a much-loved friend, a warm and generous colleague who always
had time for his students and confused neuroscientists. His passion for
his craft was evident to all who worked with or studied under him. He
will be sorely missed by all of us. At this moment, memorial
arrangements have not been finalized. Those who wish to send condolences
may contact his partner in Chicago:

 

Chuanhong Liao

5660 S. Blackstone #2
Chicago, IL, 60637

773-947-9660

<cliao1 at uchicago.edu

 

Jennifer Chew

McConnell Brain Imaging Centre

MNI - WB317

3801 University Street

Montreal, Qc  H3A 2B4

Telephone:  514-398-8554

Fax:  514-398-2975

 

 
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