1913–1993 · American physician and biologist · president of the Sloan-Kettering Institute
Lewis Thomas was an American physician and biologist who doubled as one of the finest essayists of his generation — his encyclopedia entry needs eight nouns to cover him, among them poet, etymologist, administrator and educator. He served as president of the Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York, and his 1974 collection The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher won National Book Awards in two separate categories, Arts and Letters and the Sciences. He wrote about biology the way a good host talks at dinner: warmly, briefly, and with the confidence to make a joke at the species’ expense.