Stephen Straker - PhD

(In Memoriam)

Dr. Stephen Straker began to redefine my analytic thought processes when I was a student in the Arts One program at the University of British Columbia in the late '70's.  He was an amazing mentor, teacher, guide, and friend who, in his gentle way, has had a profound and incremental impact on my life. 

Born in New York City in 1942, Dr. Straker became a landed immigrant in 1972. Before teaching at UBC, Straker obtained his Ph.D. degree in history of science from Indiana University in 1971: his thesis was entitled “Kepler’s Optics: A Study in the Development of 17th-Century Natural Philosophy”. As a professor in the UBC History Department, Straker was regarded as an interdisciplinary, collectively weaving together strands of history, philosophy, and science. He was a founding member of the Arts One program and the Science and Society Group at UBC, and in 2002, Dr. Straker was a recipient of the Killam Teaching Prize. Straker, along with Edward Levy and Catherine Crawford, became heavily involved in writing a biography about an internationally acclaimed biochemist, Juda Hirsch Quastel, who came to UBC as the first professor of neurochemistry in 1965. Straker died suddenly in his 62nd year on July 24, 2004.