| Born in Toronto, Ontario, Dr. Morris (Rocky) Rockstein completed his high school education in Brooklyn, New York and completed an A.B. in mathematics and biology at Brooklyn College (Magna cum Laude). He went on to complete a M.A. in Physiology at Columbia University before moving to the U of M in 1941 to undertake Ph.D. research with A.G. Richards. The title of his thesis was "The relation of cholinesterase to change in cell number with age in the brain of adult worker honey bee," which was published in the Journal of Cellular and Comparative Physiology.
Dr. Rockstein progressed from Assistant to Associate Professor of Physiology at Washington State University before joining the New York University School of Medicine as an Associate Professor of Physiology. During his time in New York, he served as instructor in Marine Invertebrate Zoology at the well-known Marine Biology Laboratory at Woods Hole, MA. In 1961, Rocky moved to the University of Miami School of Medicine, where he was a Professor of Physiology with a joint appointment in the Department of Radiology. He chaired the Department of Physiology from 1967 to 1971.
Throughout his career, Dr. Rockstein maintained his research interests in insect aging-well before aging became a fashionable topic. As a pioneer in this area, he served as a Consultant to the Aging Program of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and his expertise in insect physiology was the basis for his service on the Tropical Medicine and Parasitology Study section, also at the NIH. Over the course of his career, Dr. Rockstein received numerous honors and awards, including Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science, Fellow of the Entomological Society of America, Trustee of the Marine Biological Laboratory Corporation, Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Aging Research, and Vice-president of the International Association for the Prolongation of Human Life Span. He received the University of Minnesota's Outstanding Alumnus Award in 1977.
Dr. Rockstein served as visiting professor and lecturer at several Universities both in the US and abroad, and he published more than 80 refereed papers and book chapters. To insect physiologists around the globe, Rocky is probably best remembered for his "Physiology of Insecta," which includes 9 volumes published from 1964-1974, and for his "Biochemistry of Insects," which, in 1978, was the first new text on this topic to appear in more than 15 years.
In 1999, the Department honored Dr. Rockstein by selecting him as the Hodson Alumni Award recipient.
In 2004, Dr. Rockstein set up a fellowship fund for the department, the Morris and Elaine Soffer Rockstein Fellowship Fund, to help support Entomology Graduate Students. The funds in this fellowship are matched by the University's 21st Century Fellowship program.
In his obituary, the family has asked that in lieu of flowers, donations be made to his fellowship fund.
Donations can be mailed to:
Fund 7616 Morris and Elaine Soffer Rockstein Fellowship Fund
University of Minnesota Foundation
C-M 3854
P.O. Box 70870
St. Paul, MN 55170-3854
Phone: (800) 775-2187
Donations can also be made online at http://www.giving.umn.edu/giving_opps/outright_gifts/
Be sure to specify Fund 7616 Morris and Elaine Soffer Rockstein Fellowship Fund.
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