Obituary

12 September 2001 |

Doris Calloway
Professor Emerita Doris Howes Calloway, a pioneering nutritional scientist who first studied the dietary needs of healthy people under controlled conditions, died Friday, Aug. 31, of Parkinson’s disease at a nursing home in Seattle. She was 78.

Known internationally and on campus as a ground-breaking scientist and a sensitive human being, Calloway excelled in several arenas during her 27 years at Berkeley.

She started the “Penthouse” studies, which recorded in detail the food and energy needs of six volunteers who lived for several weeks on campus in an isolated environment. These studies, begun in the 1960s, later became a model for careful dietary research.

Calloway also was the first woman to break into the ranks of senior administrators at Berkeley, becoming a provost for professional schools and colleges in 1981.

Appointed to head Berkeley’s 13 professional schools and colleges from 1981 to 1987, Calloway set about turning the creativity of scientific innovators toward solving human problems created by technology. As in many other areas, she led the way for women in senior positions on campus.

“She broke the ice, and it wasn’t easy,” recalled Ira Michael Heyman, a professor emeritus of law and city planning who was chancellor on campus at the time. “I had enormous faith in Doris’s professionalism and sensitivity. She was one of my most cherished appointments as chancellor.”

Born in Canton, Ohio, in 1923, Calloway earned a B.S. at Ohio State University in Columbus and a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago (1947). Her first research work was for the U.S. Army, at the Armed Forces Food and Container Institute in Chicago, where in 1959 she won the first of her many awards, a plaque naming her “Man of the Year” for research. Calloway loved to point out the plaque and humorously kept it prominently displayed .

From there, after a brief stint at the Stanford Research Institute, Calloway was appointed professor of nutrition at Berkeley in 1963. She retired in 1990, but continued her work until she was incapacitated by Parkinson’s disease.

Among her many honors, Calloway was awarded the Berkeley Citation and the Bristol-Myers Squibb/Mead Johnson Award for Distinguished Achievement in Nutrition Research. Two years ago, the Regents of the University of California created an endowed chair in human nutrition at Berkeley in her name.

Calloway is survived by her husband of 20 years, Robert Nesheim of Seattle; a son, David Calloway of Woodland Hills, Calif.; a daughter, Candace Calloway Whiting of Seattle; two stepchildren, Sandra Rankin of Danbury, Conn.; and Barbara Mowry of Denver; and nine grandchildren.

Memorial services will be held at 2 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 7, on the Morgan Hall Patio. Contributions can be sent to the Doris Howes Calloway Memorial Fund, 101 Giannini Hall, College of Natural Resources, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720.